ASSA 2025 Round-up: Day 2
Yesterday was the second day of the 2025 annual meeting of the Allied Social Science Associations, which is organized by the American Economic Association. The 3-day conference, held in San Francisco, California, this year, features hundreds of sessions covering a wide variety of economics and other social science research. Equitable Growth’s vast academic network, including grantees and Nonresident Scholars, and our Steering Committee were well-represented throughout this year’s program, featured in at least 62 different sessions of the conference.
Below are lightly edited abstracts from some of the papers and presentations that caught the attention of Equitable Growth staff during the second day of this year’s conference, with links to the sessions in which the papers were presented. Many of these papers are closely related to the research areas we are interested in funding.
Check out highlights from Day 1 here and come back tomorrow morning for highlights from Day 3.
“How Do Industrial and Place-Based Policies Work?”
Gordon Hanson, Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research, Equitable Growth Working Paper Series contributor; Dani Rodrik, Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research, Equitable Growth Working Paper Series contributor; Rohan Sandhu, Harvard University
Abstract: Industrial and place-base based policies are back in vogue. In the United States, local, state, and federal government actors have expanded efforts to recruit large companies, invest in low-income communities, promote small business, and train workers. Although recent literature provides causal analysis of specific policy interventions, we still know little about the overall design and implementation of industrial and place-based policies, the magnitude and targeting of policy resource flows, and the coordination of policies across levels of government. Using newly constructed data on industrial and place-based policies in the United States over the past 25 years, we chart policy resource flows across industries and regions, identify the local, state, and federal actors that manage the flows, and estimate the implied policy functions that allocate the flows. Although there is wide regional variation in policy experimentation, funding for most policies tends to concentrate in already-successful regions. This outcome appears to be the result of the fragmentation of policy responsibility across government agencies and federal spending rules that effectively penalize regions with low administrative capacity.
Ellora Derenoncourt, Princeton University, Equitable Growth grantee; David Weil, Brandeis University, Equitable Growth grantee
Abstract: Recent wage growth at the bottom of the earnings distribution in the United States has reversed a decades-long trend of widening wage inequality. Numerous state and local minimum wage increases have overtaken an increasingly nonbinding federal minimum wage, and robust labor demand in the post-pandemic recovery drove substantial wage growth in the low-wage sector. An increasingly pervasive phenomenon during this period is the use of voluntary, companywide minimum wages by private employers, including some of the largest retailers in the United States. We use administrative payroll data to study the effects of large retailer voluntary minimum wages since 2014 on their own wages and employment, as well as spillover effects on other employers. Voluntary minimum wages result in sizable wage increases and reductions in turnover at the companies that implement them. Despite the decline in separations from companies with voluntary minimum wages, overall hiring rates at other companies do not decline, and wages at other companies do not increase. Thus, while voluntary minimum wages have affected more than 3 million jobs among the largest retailers with policies, their impact on the broader market is limited.
Note: This research was funded in part by Equitable Growth.
Won Fy Lee, First 5 California; Aaron Sojourner, W.E. Upjohn Institute, Equitable Growth grantee; Elizabeth Davis, University of Minnesota, Equitable Growth grantee; Johnathan Borowsky, University of Minnesota, Equitable Growth grantee
Abstract: Workforce participation among mothers with children under the age of 6 has increased in recent decades, with about 7 in 10 mothers participating in the labor force in 2022. Despite the need for accessible child care services, a significant majority of families with young children find themselves residing in what has been called a child care desert. Regulations tend to increase child care quality at the cost of the quantity of slots, disproportionately impacting local markets with higher concentrations of low-income parents. Building upon previous research, this study aims to estimate the effects of child care regulations on child care market supply using a different methodology than prior work. Variation in state licensing regimes makes comparisons across states based on public licensing data challenging to interpret. Instead, to get a nationwide, cross-state consistent measure of provider locations and sizes, this study uses a Dunn and Bradstreet provider panel from 2011 to 2017. It is combined with state-year regulation policy data sourced from the National Association for Regulatory Administration’s Child Care Licensing Programs and Policies Survey. The survey allows us to create a composite index of regulatory stringency based on multiple dimensions of regulation, including building/environmental safety, teacher-to-child ratio, teacher quality, training requirements, and so forth. This paper exploits policy discontinuity around state borders and uses a regression discontinuity design framework to investigate how differing levels of regulatory stringency impact supply in geographically proximate regions.
“Financialization and Job Quality”
Andrew Weaver, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign; Richard Benton, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Abstract: The question of what impact finance and financial processes have had on the structure and quality of jobs has attracted increased attention in recent years. Some analysts have argued that financial pressures and financialized management strategies, often referred to by the general term financialization, have led to firms adopting a short-term orientation in which fewer investments are made in human capital and job quality is diminished. At the same time, some researchers have defended the impact of financial processes and investors on employment. In this study, we examine the relationship between prior financialization events and job quality using nationally representative surveys focusing on three target industries: computer/engineering services, retail, and computer/electronic manufacturing. We pair this original survey data with financial data from Capital IQ. The results show considerable heterogeneity by industry. We draw policy-relevant lessons for the relationship between financial activities and establishment-level job characteristics.
“Work Requirements and Child Tax Benefits”
Tatiana Homonoff, New York University; Jacob Goldin, University of Chicago; Neel Lal, University of Chicago; Ithai Lurie, U.S. Department of the Treasury; Katherine Michelmore, University of Michigan, Equitable Growth grantee; Matthew Unrath, University of Southern California
Abstract: The largest tax-based social welfare programs in the United States limit their benefits to taxpayers with labor market income. Eliminating these work requirements would better target transfers to the neediest families but risks attenuating tax-based incentives to work. We study changes in labor force participation from the elimination of a work requirement in a tax credit for parents of young children, drawing on quasi-random variation in birth timing and administrative tax records. To do so, we develop and implement a novel approach for selecting an empirical specification to maximize the precision of our estimate. The unique design of the policy along with its subsequent reform allow us to isolate taxpayers’ sensitivity to conditioning child tax benefits on work—the parameter at the center of recent debates about the labor supply consequences of reforming federal tax policy for children. We estimate a precise null result, with a 95 percent confidence interval excluding labor supply reductions of one-third of a percentage point or greater. Our results suggest expanding tax benefits for low-income children need not meaningfully reduce labor force participation.
“Black Gold: The Effect of Wealth on Descendants of the Enslaved”
Micah Villarreal, University of California, Santa Barbara, Equitable Growth grantee
Abstract: Can temporary windfalls narrow racial wealth disparities? Can they address other racial inequalities? In this project, I leverage quasi-random oil discoveries on Black-owned land in the early 1900s to study how large positive wealth shocks may have affected Black economic progress in the short and long-term. In preliminary work, I find that wealth has a positive effect on the human capital of the first generation. Landholders who find oil are more geographically mobile and select into higher-status occupations. Work on longer-term outcomes, including intergenerational outcomes, is still in progress.
Note: This research was funded in part by Equitable Growth.
“The Profitability of Diversity in the Media”
Lena Song, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Equitable Growth grantee
Abstract: Product positioning is a crucial strategic decision for firms. Using a novel dataset of all commercial radio stations across the United States, I study the positioning choices of radio stations and their profitability in the post-war Jim Crow era. There was less content available for Black audiences, compared to White audiences, while stations offering more programming for Black audiences were significantly more profitable. Similar patterns are not observed for stations with foreign-language programming. Viewed through the lens of an entry model, these results suggest that firm-owner discrimination may influence product positioning in the media market.
Note: This research was funded in part by Equitable Growth.
“Are Inflationary Shocks Regressive? A Feasible Set Approach”
Felipe del Canto, PUC-Chile; John Grigsby, Princeton University; Eric Qian, Princeton University; Connor Walsh, Columbia Business School, Equitable Growth grantee
Abstract: We develop a framework to measure the welfare impact of inflationary shocks throughout the distribution. The first-order impact of a shock is summarized by the induced movements in agents’ feasible sets: their budget constraint and borrowing constraints. To measure this impact, we combine estimated impulse response functions with microdata on household consumption bundles, asset holdings, and labor income for different U.S. households. We find that inflationary oil shocks are regressive, but monetary expansions are progressive, and there is substantial heterogeneity throughout the life cycle. In both cases, the dominant channel is the effect of the shock on the cost of accumulating assets, not movements in goods prices or labor income.
“The Effects of ‘Buy American’: Electric Vehicles and the Inflation Reduction Act”
Hunt Allcott, Stanford University; Joseph S. Shapiro, University of California, Berkeley; Felix Tintelnot, University of Chicago
Abstract: We provide the first ex-post microeconomic welfare analysis of a central component of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate change policy in U.S. history. The act reshaped electric vehicle tax credits by merging elements of environmental and trade policies through “Buy American” domestic content requirements. Over the law’s inaugural year, we analyze these credits’ pass-through to consumer prices and their impacts on vehicle registrations, domestic content, environmental externalities, and social welfare. Our event study analyzes exploit changes in credit eligibility, and the resulting estimates provide moments to identify and estimate an equilibrium model of new vehicle markets. Four conclusions emerge. First, transaction prices for vehicle purchases and lease contract terms imply large and possibly complete pass-through of credits to consumers. Second, the EV credits had muted effects on EV registrations. Third, supply constraints and a leasing loophole contribute to the modest registration impact and also to a nearly unchanged market share of electric vehicles produced in the United States. A removal of the leasing loophole would increase the U.S. assembly share of sold electric vehicles by 6 percentage points. Fourth, the Inflation Reduction Act’s electric vehicle credits modestly decrease social welfare, with an estimated benefit/cost ratio of 1/3, since the credits’ fiscal costs exceed their associated environmental benefits.
“Intergenerational Wealth and Health Effects of Union Membership Across Race”
Kyle Moore, Economic Policy Institute, Equitable Growth grantee and former Dissertation Scholar
Abstract: This study will investigate the relationship between parental union membership and the contemporary wealth and health outcomes of children in adulthood across race using the 2022 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The working hypothesis is that parental union membership would have a protective effect on wealth and health for children through three pathways: an intergenerational transmission of union membership, and a positive contemporary effect of union membership on wealth and health outcomes; a positive effect of union membership on contemporary wealth through its positive effect on parental wealth and the intergenerational transmission of wealth; and a protective effect of union membership on contemporary health through the protective effect of parental wealth on contemporary health. Of particular interest is whether the effects of parental union membership on contemporary wealth and health differ for Black and White adults.