Fishback, Price, Jessamyn Schaller, and Evan Taylor, “Local Administration and Racial Inequality in Federal Program Access: Insights from New Deal Work Relief." Under Review.
As part of the New Deal, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided work relief jobs for millions of unemployed Americans during the Great Depression. We study racial inequality in access to these work relief jobs. The Federal U.S Government made explicit statements prohibiting racial discrimination in the WPA. However, the program gave hiring powers to local and state administrators, and the federal government only had limited power to enforce racial equality in hiring. Using the 1940 Full Count U.S Census, we estimate Black-white gaps in work relief access separately by county after controlling for household observable characteristics. We find no evidence of racial discrimination against Black men in non-Southern counties, but strong evidence of racial discrimination in the South. We find that Southern counties where housing segregation was low and where Black homeownership rates were high had higher Black access to work relief. Counties where the occupational composition of the white and Black workforce were similar had lower Black relief access. This suggests local competition for scare relief jobs, and racial attitudes of Southern officials compared to Northern officials, both played an important role in limiting Black access to work relief jobs.
“Health Insurance Coverage for Displaced Workers Before and After the Affordable Care Act” (with Mariana Zerpa)
We examine how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) altered the effects of involuntary job loss on health insurance coverage. Using matched event study models estimated on panel survey data, we document substantial declines in coverage following job loss prior to the ACA—especially among middle-income workers. After the ACA's major provisions were implemented in 2014, these losses were sharply reduced: displaced workers were more likely to have public coverage before job loss and less likely to lose coverage afterward. Heterogeneity by pre-displacement income reveals that the ACA closed gaps in baseline coverage and smoothed post-loss trajectories, particularly for middle-income individuals. Our findings highlight the ACA’s role in strengthening the insurance safety net for displaced workers.
"Cyclical Fertility over the 20th Century" (with Kasey Buckles).
“Dynamic Treatment Effects for Empirical Microeconomists” (with Gaetano Basso and Douglas L. Miller).
"Do Cyclical Fluctuations in Local Economic Conditions Lead to Changes in Student Achievement? Evidence from County Panel Data" (with Karla Cordova)