Bounding the Labor Supply Responses to a Randomized Welfare Experiment: A Revealed Preference Approach
Patrick Kline, Melissa Tartari
American Economic Review · 2016 · Volume 106 · Issue 4
Abstract
We study the short-term impact of Connecticut's Jobs First welfare reform experiment on women's labor supply and welfare participation decisions. A nonparametric optimizing model is shown to restrict the set of counterfactual choices compatible with each woman's actual choice. These revealed preference restrictions yield informative bounds on the frequency of several intensive and extensive margin responses to the experiment. We find that welfare reform induced many women to work but led some others to reduce their earnings in order to receive assistance. The bounds on this latter "opt-in" effect imply that intensive margin labor supply responses are nontrivial. (JEL H23, H75, I38, J16, J22)
Keywords
Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities, Redistributive Effects, Environmental Taxes and Subsidies, State and Local Government: Health, Education, Welfare, Public Pensions, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs, Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs, Economics of Gender, Non-labor Discrimination, Time Allocation and Labor Supply
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