Working Papers
“Wages, Taxes, and Labor Supply Elasticities: The Role of Social Preferences”, with Janjala Chirakijja, March 2025, R&R at The Economic Journal.
Paper (SSRN)
We show that social preferences (e.g. warm glow or spite) towards tax-funded government expenditures induce differences between the wage and net-of-tax rate elasticities of labor supply in canonical models. In a large-scale vignette experiment in the US, we find that wage elasticities of labor supply are meaningfully larger than their net-of-tax rate counterparts, consistent with positive social preferences. We show relevance for real labor market decisions by building on an existing meta-analysis of the elasticity of taxable income. Hence, models calibrated using net-of-tax rate elasticities when wage elasticities are more suitable understate the labor supply response of individuals.
“Redesigning Jobs by Automating Disfavored Tasks Benefits Workers: Field Evidence”, with Ivan Png, December 2023.
Paper (SSRN)
We investigate how automation of disfavored tasks enables the redesign of jobs to benefit workers. Conventionally, cashiers scan purchases and collect payments. A supermarket chain progressively converted stores to a scan-only checkout format which shifted the task of collecting payments to customer self-service. Vignette experiments reveal that cashiers valued the new scan-only job design at 1.5-7.3 percent of wages. The scan-only job design reduced cashiers’ heart rate by 3.5 percent. Cashiers at converted stores more strongly preferred the new job design and were more risk averse as compared to those at unconverted stores.
“Assessing Hypothetical Scenarios for Estimating Labor Supply Responses: Evidence from Pension Reform”, with Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln, Jonas Jessen, and Jessica Pan.
Paper coming soon.
Publications
The Mortality Effects of Winter Heating Prices, with Janjala Chirakijja and Seema Jayachandran, The Economic Journal, 2024, 134(657): 402–417.
Deskilling Technology Affords Work Amenity, Increases Labor Supply, with Ivan Png, Strategic Management Journal, 2026, 47(2): 364-389.
“The Effect of Child Support on Fathers’ Labor Supply“, forthcoming (2027) at Journal of Labor Economics.
Resting for now
“The Riskiness of Owning Versus Renting Housing”, with Lee M. Lockwood, Scott R. Baker, and Lorenz Kueng.
“The Effect of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Local Area Economic Outcomes: Evidence from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”.
“The Effect of Seasonal Unemployment on Substance Use”, with Jason Ward.