Publications
Multi-generational Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net: Early Life Exposure to Medicaid and the Next Generation’s Health, with Sarah Miller, Marianne Page, and Laura Wherry, NBER Working Paper 23810, Ungated Version
Conditionally Accepted at the American Economic Review
Media Coverage: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, NBER Digest, VOX, Brookings, Tradeoffs Newsletter
Abstract: We examine multi-generational impacts of positive in utero health interventions using a new research design that exploits sharp increases in prenatal Medicaid eligibility that occurred in some states. Our analyses are based on U.S. Vital Statistics Natality files, which enables linkages between individuals’ early life Medicaid exposure and the next generation’s health at birth. We find evidence that the health benefits associated with treated generations’ early life program exposure extend to later offspring. Our results suggest that the returns on early life health investments may be substantively underestimated.
The Labor Market Effects of Immigration Enforcement, with Annie Hines, Philip Luck, Hani Mansour, and Andrea Velasquez, Updated April 2022
Forthcoming at the Journal of Labor Economics
Older Version: IZA DP No. 11486
Replication Files: https://github.com/cneast/East_etal_2022
Media Coverage: The Economist ("The perverse side effects of America’s harsh immigration policies")
Abstract: We examine the labor market effects of Secure Communities (SC)--a police-based immigration enforcement policy implemented between 2008-2013. Using variation in implementation across local areas and over time, we find that SC decreased the employment of likely undocumented immigrants. These effects are driven not only by deportations, but also by adjustments among immigrants who remain in the U.S. Importantly, SC also decreased the employment and hourly wages of U.S.-born individuals. We provide support for two mechanisms that could explain this decline in labor demand: an increase in labor costs that decreases job creation, and a reduction in local consumption.
Unintended Consequences of Immigration Enforcement: Household Services and High-Educated Mothers' Work, with Andrea Velasquez, Forthcoming at the Journal of Human Resources
Older Version: IZA DP No. 12029
Replication Files: https://github.com/cneast/East_Velasquez_2022
Media Coverage: The Economist ("How immigration-law enforcement can affect high-skilled American women")
Abstract: Immigration enforcement has intensified in the U.S., however, there is little evidence on its effect on U.S.-born individuals’ labor outcomes. Exploiting the staggered rollout of a large, federal enforcement policy–Secure Communities (SC)–across local areas, we estimate a difference-in-differences model with time and location fixed effects. We find that SC reduced the labor supply of college-educated U.S.-born mothers with young children. If SC exposure occurred when children are below age 3, the negative effects on labor supply persist over time. We further show increased cost of outsourcing household production, due to reduced undocumented immigrants’ labor supply, is an important mechanism.
Can Collaboration Between Nonprofit Hospitals and Local Health Departments Influence Population Health Investments by Nonprofit Hospitals? with Tatiane Santos (lead author), Shoou-Yih D. Lee, and Richard C. Lindrooth
Medical Care. 59(8):687-693, August 2021.
How do Early Life Health Experiences Affect Future Generations' Equality of Opportunity?, with Marianne Page
"An Equal Start: Policy and Practice to Promote Equality of Opportunity for Children." American Psychological Association edited volume.
Abstract: A large literature documents that early life health environments can have long lasting impacts on individuals’ well-being. Existing literatures in biology, epidemiology, psychology, child development and economics also predict that the effects of early environments should persist beyond the exposed generation. This article considers what is known about the extent to which “first generation” effects persist to later generations, with a focus on studies that use randomized experiments and “natural experiment” research designs that can help isolate causal effects from correlations. In addition to documenting persistent effects of early life environments from one generation to the next, we argue that the presence and magnitude of multi-generational linkages has important implications for the evaluation of public policies intended to promote equality of opportunity. The emerging evidence on positive interventions’ multi-generational impacts suggests that existing cost-benefit analyses typically underestimate programs’ true value.
An Apple a Day? Adult Food Stamp Eligibility and Health Care Utilization, with Andrew Friedson, Revised February 2020,
American Journal of Health Economics, Volume 6, Number 3, Summer 2020
Older Version: IZA DP No. 11445, Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 19-295
Upjohn Institute Featured Research (nontechnical)
Abstract: In this study, we document the effect of Food Stamp access on adult health care utilization. While Food Stamps is one of the largest safety net programs in the U.S. today, the universal nature of the program across geographic areas and over time limits the potential for quasi-experimental analysis. To circumvent this, we use variation in documented immigrants’ eligibility for Food Stamps across states and over time due to welfare reform in 1996. Our estimates indicate that access to Food Stamps reduced physician visits. Additionally, we find that for single women, Food Stamps increased the affordability of specialty health care. These findings have important implications for cost-benefit analyses of the Food Stamp program, as reductions in health care utilization due to Food Stamps may offset some of the program’s impact on the overall government budget due to the existence of government-provided health insurance programs such as Medicaid.
The Effect of Food Stamps on Children's Health: Evidence from Immigrants' Changing Eligibility
Journal of Human Resources, Spring 2020, vol. 55, no.2, pp. 387-427
Media Coverage: The Council of Economic Advisers, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (a) and (b), The Conversation, The Alton Telegraph, Economists' Letter to Congress in Support of the Child Tax Credit
Abstract: The Food Stamp program is currently one of the largest safety net programs in the United States and is especially important for families with children: 25% of all children received Food Stamp benefits in 2011. The existing evidence on the effects of Food Stamps on children’s and families’ outcomes is limited, however, because it is a federal program with little quasi-experimental variation. I utilize a large, recent source of quasi-experimental variation–changes in documented immigrants’ eligibility across states and over time from 1996 to 2003–to estimate the effect of Food Stamps on children’s health. I study the medium-run health effects of these policy changes on U.S.-born children of immigrants, whose parents were subject to the changes in eligibility. I find loss of parental eligibility has large effects on contemporaneous program receipt, and an additional year of parental eligibility, between the time children are in utero to age 4, leads to improvements in health outcomes at ages 6-16. This provides some of the first evidence that early-life resource shocks impact later-life health as early as school age.
Immigrants' Labor Supply Response to Food Stamp Access
Labour Economics, 2018, Vol. 51, pp. 202-226
Abstract: Welfare reform in 1996 created a new, large disparity in Food Stamp eligibility between documented non-citizen immigrants and natives. Subsequent policies restored eligibility for most of these immigrants at different times in different states, and I use these changes to estimate the effect of program access on the labor supply of immigrants–a policy-relevant population. The Food Stamp program is one of the largest safety net programs today, and my analysis provides one of the first quasi-experimental estimates of the effects of the modern Food Stamp program on adult labor supply. I find strong evidence of labor supply disincentives, and the magnitude and margin of this response varies across demographic groups. Access to the program reduces the employment rates of single women by about 6%, whereas married men continue to work but reduce their hours of work by 5%. These findings confirm the predictions of traditional labor supply theory regarding the response to a means-tested program.
Reexamining the Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance, with Elira Kuka
Journal of Public Economics, 2015, Vol. 132, pp. 32-50
Abstract: The Great Recession spurred renewed interest in the moral hazard effects of the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program, however little research has focused on determining its benefits. This paper examines the consumption smoothing benefit of the UI program over the last 40 years, finding strong evidence of heterogeneity in this effect over time. In particular, the effects of UI are smaller in the 1990s compared with the 1970s. The 1990s were unique because of the long period of low unemployment rates as well as relatively low UI program generosity, thus we test whether the consumption smoothing effects vary by the state unemployment rate and average program generosity. We find suggestive evidence that the effects are larger when the state unemployment rate and average generosity are high. Together, these two dimensions can explain around 30-46% of the differential effect that we find in the 1990s.
Working Papers
How Well Insured are Job Losers? The Efficacy of the Public Safety Net, with David Simon, Updated July 2022, NBER Working Paper 28218, Under Review
Media Coverage: Denver Business Journal, CNBC
Abstract: An extensive literature documents large and persistent declines in earnings following job loss. We study how the public safety net mitigates this using the 1996-2013 Survey of Income and Program Participation. Using an individual fixed effects model, we document which public programs provide the most insurance, and how this varies by pre-job loss characteristics. We find that Unemployment Insurance provides the largest buffer against lost income, but that the neediest are less well insured compared to middle- and higher- income job losers. This has important implications for the progressivity of the safety net, and how best to support displaced workers.
Work in Progress
Caseworker Subjectivity, SNAP Benefit Receipt, and Labor Supply, with Jason Cook
The Effect of Immigration Policy on Immigrant Health Care Utilization and Spillovers to Native Health, with Michelle Marcus
The Effect of Immigration Policy on Immigrant Health Care Utilization and Spillovers to Native Health, with Michelle Marcus
Policy Briefs and Opinion Pieces
The Relationship between Unemployment Insurance and SNAP during COVID-19 and Historically, with Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Lauren Bauer, Brookings Institute, In Progress
Immigration Profiles: State Immigration Policy and Children’s Well-Being, National Center for Children in Poverty, August 2021
New research reveals the importance of Unemployment Insurance for displaced worker, Niskanen Center, December 18, 2020
Job Loss and the Safety Net, with David Simon, EconoFact, December 2, 2020
Coronavirus’ Disproportionate Economic Impacts on Immigrants, with Hilary Hoynes and Tara Watson, EconoFact, June 17, 2020
Media Coverage: CNBC
Disparities in Access to Health Care During a Pandemic, with Michelle Marcus, EconoFact, May 27, 2020
Reprinted by Niskanen Center
Secure Communities: Broad Impacts of Increased Immigration Enforcement, EconoFact, January 13, 2020
Access to Food Stamps Improves Children’s Health and Reduces Medical Spending UC Davis Poverty Center Policy Brief, Volume 7, Number 4, November 2018
Immigration Profiles: State Immigration Policy and Children’s Well-Being, National Center for Children in Poverty, August 2021
New research reveals the importance of Unemployment Insurance for displaced worker, Niskanen Center, December 18, 2020
Job Loss and the Safety Net, with David Simon, EconoFact, December 2, 2020
Coronavirus’ Disproportionate Economic Impacts on Immigrants, with Hilary Hoynes and Tara Watson, EconoFact, June 17, 2020
Media Coverage: CNBC
Disparities in Access to Health Care During a Pandemic, with Michelle Marcus, EconoFact, May 27, 2020
Reprinted by Niskanen Center
Secure Communities: Broad Impacts of Increased Immigration Enforcement, EconoFact, January 13, 2020
Access to Food Stamps Improves Children’s Health and Reduces Medical Spending UC Davis Poverty Center Policy Brief, Volume 7, Number 4, November 2018