Research Papers

We investigated the impact of the Social Security Annual Earnings Test (AET) on employment decisions of older Americans using a differences-in-differences design.

We aimed to understand how the AET, which reduces benefits for earnings above a certain amount, affects employment rates among older Americans nearing retirement age.

Our findings indicate that the AET significantly decreases employment rates among those aged 63-64, providing critical insights for policymakers on the labor market effects of Social Security policies.

We introduced a method to estimate the cost of adjusting earnings and the earnings elasticity with respect to the net-of-tax share, using bunching in the earnings distribution at convex budget set kinks before and after policy changes.

We sought to explore the relationship between tax policy changes and earnings adjustments, specifically focusing on the Social Security Earnings Test, to provide a clearer understanding of the behavioral responses to tax rate changes.

Our results highlight that adjustment costs can significantly dampen the short-run effects of changes in effective marginal tax rates, offering crucial insights for policymakers on the efficiency and impact of tax policy adjustments.

We designed and implemented a comprehensive workplace wellness program for a large employer with over 12,000 employees, randomly assigning program eligibility and financial incentives at the individual level.

We sought to determine whether workplace wellness programs effectively reduce medical spending, boost productivity, and improve employee well-being, addressing the gap in evidence supporting these claims.

Our results indicate that while these programs may not directly reduce costs or enhance productivity, they could still benefit employers by attracting and retaining healthier, lower-cost employees, potentially leading to net savings.

We evaluated hypotheses about education’s impact on beliefs about racial inequality using cross-sectional, sibling, and panel models. Analyzing data from the General Social Survey (GSS), the 1994 Study of American Families, and the 2006–2010 GSS panels, we assessed whether education promotes structural explanations for racial disparities or if observed effects are superficial and influenced by unobserved factors.

We aimed to clarify conflicting perspectives on education’s influence on racial attitudes: whether it genuinely fosters more enlightened views or if associations are superficial and due to unobserved biases. By employing different models and datasets, we sought to disentangle these complexities and provide a nuanced understanding of education’s role in shaping beliefs about racial inequality.

Our findings suggest that while cross-sectional analyses indicate education promotes structural explanations for racial inequality, sibling and fixed-effects models suggest these effects may be superficial and inflated by unobserved factors. This challenges simplistic interpretations and underscores the need for careful methodological considerations in studying the relationship between education and racial attitudes.

We employed a novel rank-based index of stratification to measure how occupational classes occupy distinct, non-overlapping, hierarchical layers in the US income distribution from 1980 to 2016.

We aimed to address the gap in empirical studies that focus on inequality rather than stratification. By developing a rank-based stratification index, we sought to accurately capture class stratification and provide insights into the structural dynamics of the US income distribution over time, enhancing the understanding of class structure and social stratification.

Our findings show a substantial increase in class stratification in the US from 1980 to 2016, driven by factors like income returns to education, deunionization, and deindustrialization. These results highlight growing economic divides based on occupational class, informing theories of class structure and guiding policies to reduce economic stratification and promote social mobility.

We developed a method to estimate the effect of kinked or notched budget sets on workers’ employment decisions and applied it to the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Annual Earnings Test (AET).

We aimed to understand how the AET, which reduces OASI benefits based on earnings, influences employment rates, using a Regression Kink Design and Social Security Administration data.

Our findings show that the AET significantly reduces employment, providing valuable insights for policymakers on the labor market effects of benefit reduction policies.

We explored an alternative regression-based method, regression-with-residuals (RWR), for estimating marginal effects of time-varying treatments on end-of-study continuous outcomes. This method was compared with inverse-probability-of-treatment-weighted (IPTW) estimation of a marginal structural model.

We aimed to address challenges in estimating marginal treatment effects with observational data, particularly when dealing with time-varying confounders affected by prior treatments.

Our findings suggest that RWR estimation of a constrained structural nested mean model may outperform IPTW estimation in certain scenarios for estimating marginal treatment effects of time-varying treatments on continuous outcomes.

We introduced a new method, regression with residuals, to estimate moderated causal effects in longitudinal studies where both treatment and effect moderators vary over time.

We aimed to address the limitations of traditional regression models in longitudinal settings, where time-varying moderators of future treatment can be influenced by prior treatment.

Our method provides a more accurate approach to understanding how individual characteristics modify the effects of treatments over time. This is crucial for social scientists seeking to identify the nuanced ways in which interventions impact different subgroups.

We empirically evaluated critiques of class analysis related to aggregate classes defined by workplace ownership and authority relations. We examined whether these classes differ from those based on the technical division of labor and assessed class differences in life conditions and political attitudes over time.

We aimed to address arguments that class differences have declined or decomposed into smaller occupational differences. By focusing on aggregate classes based on workplace ownership and authority, we sought to clarify whether these class distinctions remain significant and distinct from those based on the technical division of labor.

Our findings show that aggregate ownership-and-authority class differences in life conditions and political attitudes are significant and persistent, even within disaggregate occupational classes. These results challenge claims about the decline or decomposition of class perspectives and highlight the continued relevance of class analysis in understanding social and economic inequalities.

We investigated the effects of merit aid scholarship programs on the migratory patterns and educational outcomes of skilled labor, using Census data on 24 to 32-year-olds in the U.S. from 1990 to 2010.

We aimed to understand whether subsidizing higher education through merit aid can retain high-achieving students in-state and influence their long-term residency and educational attainment.

Our findings suggest that while merit aid slightly increases the likelihood of state natives remaining in-state and extends in-state enrollment, it does not significantly change the share of a cohort living in-state with a BA, questioning the overall effectiveness of such programs in altering skilled labor migration.