Research shows that a worker’s first few years in the labor force have outsized effects over their entire lifetime earning’s trajectory. This project will look at how earnings, employment, and job transitions have changed for young workers over the past three decades. The researcher will also look at how rising income inequality affects career outcomes.

How does the dramatic increase of student loan debt affect how college graduates search for jobs in the labor market? Do the effects of student debt on job search differ across the distribution of family income? This project addresses these important questions, with immediate implications for contemporary policy conversations about student debt reform, as well as the broader fate of Millennials in the labor market.

Economic inequality and family insecurity have risen in the United States over the past several decades. The interaction between the two phenomena is a matter of debate, as many researchers and policymakers have pointed to family structure, particularly non-marital childbirth, as a key source of rising economic inequality. But what if the relationship went the other way, and rising inequality and economic insecurity were themselves causes of family insecurity? The researchers tackle this question by looking at individual families and their evolution over time. Family instability has major implications for the development of human capital, which in turn feeds directly into long-term economic growth prospects.

Using federal income tax data, this project will investigate intragenerational income mobility in the United States. The researchers will explore the determinants of mobility—such as aging, employment history, industry trends, marriage or divorce, and geographical mobility—and examine how household income profiles respond to earnings shocks.

This research seeks to better understand how readily low-income households spend an extra dollar of income by utilizing a novel quasi-experimental design based on the uncertainty of tax refunds. A better understanding of the marginal propensity to consume at the bottom of the income distribution has important implications for the design of fiscal stimulus and unemployment insurance systems, as well as the tax system.

This project examines the effect of incarceration on various outcomes, including recidivism, human capital accumulation, employment, and earnings. The authors will do so using a natural experiment leveraging variation in sentencing outcomes due to differences between randomly assigned judges. Taking advantage of the considerable administrative data capacities of University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall, the authors aim to make novel contributions extending well beyond the current literature, which largely relies on survey data. This research will address critical questions such as the flat lining of male labor force participation, and the importance of the prison boom in driving the black/white wage gap.