Research

New NBER Papers

Latest Books

The Digest

The Tight US Labor Market: Missing Hours, Missing Workers
Article
A defining feature of the US economy since 2021 has been the unusual tightness of the labor market. The unemployment rate, currently 3.5 percent, not long ago reached historic lows, while currently about 7 percent of available jobs are unfilled, a historically high level. Labor markets can tighten if labor demand increases or labor supply contracts. In Where Are the Workers? From Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting (NBER Working Paper 30833),...

The Structure of UI Taxes Affects Firms’ Layoff Decisions
Article
Unemployment insurance (UI) is an important factor in the US labor market. In 2019, more than 5 million Americans received UI benefits. Employer UI taxes are experience rated, which means that when workers claim unemployment benefits, the prospective UI tax rates of the firms that laid them off increase. In Experience Rating as an Automatic Stabilizer (NBER Working Paper 30651), Mark Duggan, Audrey Guo, and Andrew Johnston find that this tax...

The Reporter

Program Report: Health Economics
Article
Author(s): Kitt Carpenter
The NBER Health Economics Program has historically studied the determinants and consequences of differences in health outcomes, with a focus on education, health insurance coverage, obesity, and risky behaviors such as smoking and drinking. Since the last program report, in 2015, the program has evolved in several important ways. Most notably, Michael Grossman, distinguished professor emeritus at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, stepped down from directing...

Mechanisms and Impacts of Innovation Policy
Article
Author(s): Sabrina Howell
The importance of innovation to job creation and economic growth — especially in young, high-growth firms — is widely accepted among economists as well as members of the business and policy communities. There is also a recognition that, at least at some times or in certain settings, the private sector underinvests in innovation, creating an opportunity for the public sector to step into the breach. The longstanding problem is how. What tools are most effective? There...

The Bulletin on Retirement & Disability

The Impact of Paid Family Leave on Families with Health Shocks
Article
The US is one of the few countries worldwide that does not have a federal paid family leave (PFL) policy. In the absence of a federal policy, some states have adopted PFL policies, starting with California in 2004 and now including 11 states and the District of Columbia. These PFL policies provide paid time off for workers who need to care for a newborn or a newly adopted child (parental leave) or for an ill or temporarily disabled family member (caregiving leave)....

Medicaid Expansion and Health Care Access for SSDI Beneficiaries
Article
Recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) are eligible for Medicare two years after they become eligible for cash benefits. However, traditional Medicare has substantial cost-sharing and premiums — Medicare Part B premiums amount to over 10 percent of the average monthly SSDI benefit, and coinsurance for physician and other health care services can be as much as 20 percent, with no annual limit on out-of-pocket expenses. While private supplemental plans (...

The Bulletin on Health

Prenatal Insurance Coverage for Undocumented Immigrants Improves Birth Outcomes
Article
Medicaid coverage for prenatal care has expanded considerably in recent decades. But in many states, undocumented immigrants remain ineligible for this coverage. This exclusion is consequential because one in thirteen births in the United States is to an undocumented immigrant. In Covering Undocumented Immigrants: The Effects of a Large-Scale Prenatal Care Intervention (NBER Working Paper 30299), researchers Sarah Miller and Laura Wherry evaluate the effects of...

Nursing Home Quality Varies between and within Markets
Article
Following a hospitalization, about one-fifth of Medicare beneficiaries are discharged to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). These facilities provide short-term care for recovery from a procedure — such as a hip replacement — or a medical event — such as a stroke. The average length of stay is 45 days; at a cost to Medicare of about $470 per day, this care accounts for approximately 8 percent of Medicare’s spending. In Producing Health: Measuring Value Added of Nursing...

The Bulletin on Entrepreneurship

Startup Chemistry and the Coworking Environment
Article
Startups located in coworking hubs can benefit from knowledge spillovers from their startup neighbors.  In (Co-)Working in Close Proximity: Knowledge Spillovers and Social Interactions (NBER Working Paper 30120), Maria P. Roche, Alexander Oettl,  and Christian Catalini find that knowledge spillovers are greatest among startup workers who socialize but are in moderately dissimilar enterprises. The researchers studied one of the five largest technological...

Track Record of Startups’ Investors Draws Potential Workers
Article
  Job seekers are more interested in working for startups funded by successful venture capitalists than for those whose investors lack positive track records, holding startup quality constant, Shai Bernstein, Kunal Mehta, Richard R. Townsend, and Ting Xu find in Do Startups Benefit from Their Investors’ Reputation? (NBER Working Paper 29847). If a highly successful investor had a stake in a startup that was posting a job on the AngelList Talent job search...