Center for Economic Policy Analysis at UC San Diego:
Initiative on Anti-Poverty Policy

Research Affiliates

About the Initiative on Anti-Poverty Policy

In the United States, anti-poverty policy is implemented through a complex patchwork of cash transfer programs, the in-kind provision of food, shelter, and health insurance, minimum wage regulation, and myriad other policies that are administered by a blend of federal, state and local levels of government. Consequently, identifying reform priorities requires a body of research designed to shed light on which policies deliver best with respect to policymakers’ priorities, whether the patchwork’s complexity imposes excessive administrative burdens on program beneficiaries, and what gaps the patchwork might miss.

CEPA’s Initiative on Anti-Poverty Policy encompasses research on a number of these issues. Key debates and questions addressed by our faculty’s research include:  

• The pros and cons of “contracting out” vs. direct government provision. 
• The effects of income and employment opportunities on the human capital development of children in low-income families. 
• Program participation spillovers within families and across coworkers.
• The effects of wage regulation. 
• The effects of food assistance programs.

Faculty Research Spotlights

Katherine Meckel has written a number of important papers on the effects of programs that deliver in-kind food benefits to low-income households.  In a paper published in the American Economic Review, Katherine studied the effects of anti-fraud efforts on store participation and, by extension, inconvenience costs to beneficiaries. Related work (joint with Maya Rossin Slater and Lindsey Uniat) published in the Journal of Human Resources explores the extent to which increases in inconvenience due to the non-participation of local stores reduces the likelihood that individuals take up benefits for which they are eligible through the Women Infants and Children (WIC) food support program. Another paper, published in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (joint with Jacob Goldin and Tatiana Homonoff), analyses how the timing of benefit distributions impacts grocery store pricing. In research published in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (joint with Ilyana Kuziemko and Maya Rossin Slater), she studied the extent to which contracting out the management of Medicaid benefits to health maintenance organizations influences care access and health outcomes for disadvantaged households with low vs. high expected health expenditures.

Gordon Dahl’s research (joint with Lance Lochner) on the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on beneficiary children’s performance at school has been published in the American Economic Review, as has his work on the effects of workplace peers and siblings on social insurance program participation (joint with Katrine Loken and Magne Mogstad). His research on the intergenerational transmission of participation in welfare or social insurance programs has appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (joint with Andres Kostol and Magne Mogstad) and the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (joint with Anne Gielen).

Alex Gelber has published research in the Journal of Political Economy on the impacts of disability insurance benefits on the health of program beneficiaries (joint with Timothy Moore and Alexander Strand). Related work published in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy has addressed the effects of the disability insurance program on labor market participation (also joint with Timothy Moore and Alexander Strand). In research published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, he has studied the effects of targeted youth employment programs on youth earnings, incarceration, and mortality (joint with Adam Isen and Judd Kessler).

Jeffrey (Jeff) Clemens has written a number of papers on the effects of minimum wages. These include three papers on the employment effects of minimum wages that have been published in the Journal of Public Economics (joint with Michael Wither), in Contemporary Economic Policy (joint with Michael Strain), and the most recent of which is forthcoming in the Journal of Labor Economics (joint with Michael Strain). His analyses have considered a number of additional channels through which firms might respond to minimum wage increases. The resulting papers have studied non-compliance (joint with Michael Strain), changes in the provision of fringe benefits (joint with Jonathan Meer and Lisa Kahn), and changes in the skills of the workers firms recruit and ultimately employ (joint with Jonathan Meer and Lisa Kahn). Jeff overviewed the economic underpinnings of this set of issues in paper recently published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. In the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, he has published a study of how expansions of states’ Medicaid programs impact the performance of private insurance markets.

Research by Current Students and Graduate Program Alumni

• Katherine Rittenhouse has analyzed the effects of tax benefits targeted at low-income households on child maltreatment. 

• Recent work by Parker Rogers on “Retargeting Social Media Outreach for SNAP Take-up” is forthcoming in Management Science. 

• In research recently published in Labour Economics (joint with Jiyoon Kim and Ellen Magenheim) Michael Levere has analyzed the effects of minimum wage increases on employment by firms that participate in the federal AbilityOne program, which have a focus on employing individuals with disabilities. Michael Levere has also published recent papers on “The Importance of Schools in Driving Children’s Applications for Disability Benefits” in the Journal of Public Economics (joint with Jeffrey Hemmeter and David Wittenburg), on “The Role of Information and Cash Transfers on Early Childhood Development”  in Economic Development and Cultural Change (joint with Gayatri Acharya, and Prashant Bharadwaj), and on “The Labor Market Consequences of Receiving Disability Benefits During Childhood” in the Journal of Human Resources.

• Additional recent and ongoing dissertation research by our graduate students has studied the effects of tax credits on labor supply (Kai Lippold), the effects of immigration policy on take-up of benefits targeted at low-income households (Jaenyeon Shin), and of the relative valuations parents place on open-ended cash relative to restricted-use cash benefits targeted towards children (Angela Gu).

Ongoing Projects

• Katherine Meckel continues her research on the role of food retailers in U.S. nutrition assistance programs. Her recent work explores the welfare impacts of expanded retailer participation in SNAP during the Great Recession and investigates the shift from private to public provision of food benefits in the WIC program.

• Gordon Dahl continues his research on intergenerational links, with recent work examining whether social program participation has impacts that extend through three generations. He is also researching how reductions in the generosity of unemployment insurance affect employment and starting salaries.

• Alex Gelber continues his research on the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program, as well as on the impacts of government programs on the labor market.

• Jeffrey Clemens continues his research on the effects of minimum wages on employment, job quality, and associated behaviors of firms.