Federal and State Governments Can Help Solve the Employment Problems of People in Distressed Places to Spur Equitable Growth

Places in the United States differ greatly in their residents’ access to jobs, especially good jobs. Although the federal and state governments provide about $80 billion annually to create jobs through multiple programs, these job-creation initiatives are rarely targeted to economically distressed places, where the job-creation benefits for local residents are greatest. Moreover, many of these programs take the form of business tax incentives, which are less effective at job creation than customized services for businesses and workers. I argue that the prime-age employment rate of places should be used to target job-creation programs and review which such programs are most successful in terms of having low expenditures per created job. I also discuss how these programs can be scaled and adapted to each place’s needs

Housing Assistance and Labor Supply: The Case of Rent Control

Rental housing in urban areas across the U.S. has become increasingly unaffordable. In response, legislative momentum for rent control has grown, restricting rent growth in many local municipalities. Although economists generally oppose such regulations for distorting the housing market and creating significant efficiency costs, activists argue that they promote stability, equality, and social justice. Existing research on rent control has focused primarily on its direct effect on housing; little is known about potential spillover effects on tenant outcomes. Recognizing the close link between housing and labor markets, this project investigates whether rent control influences tenant labor supply, using high-quality micro-data on rent stabilization in New York City and employing rigorous statistical methods. Specifically, we ask: Does rent control increase tenants’ labor supply by fostering residential stability? Or does it reduce labor supply through an implicit rent subsidy (an income effect)? Which demographic groups of tenants are most affected? Answers to these questions will inform both the effectiveness and equity of rent control policies and deepen our understanding of how housing assistance shapes labor market outcomes more broadly

The Labor Supply Curve Is Upward Sloping: The Effects of Immigrant-Induced Demand Shocks

What is the effect of immigration on native labor-market outcomes? An extensive literature identifies the differential impact of immigration on natives employed in jobs that are more exposed to immigrant labor (supply exposure). But immigrants consume in addition to producing output. Despite this, no literature identifies the impact on natives employed in jobs that are more exposed to immigrant consumption (demand exposure). We study native labor market effects of supply and demand exposures to immigration. Theoretically, we formalize both measures of exposure and solve for their effects on native wages. Empirically, we combine employer-employee data with a newly collected data set covering electronic payments for the universe of residents in Norway to measure supply and demand exposures of all native workers to immigration induced by EU expansions in 2004 and 2007. We find large, positive, and persistent effects of demand exposure to EU expansion on native worker income

Migration and U.S. Labor Market Effects of the Mexican Drug War

We estimate the effect of the Mexican drug war on Mexico-to-U.S. migration and the resulting effects on population, employment, and wages in U.S. labor markets. Our empirical strategy compares U.S. counties differentially connected to Mexican municipalities through historical migration networks, using drug violence triggered by close municipal elections in 2007–2008 as a source of exogenous variation. Over the following decade, migrants fleeing the violence—the vast majority of whom are undocumented—cause native-born U.S. workers’ employment rates to increase and unemployment rates to fall, while wages do not change. Employment gains are largest for natives without a college degree. Employment effects fade after a decade