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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan; Jimenez-Martin, Sergi; Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina |
| Abstract: | We estimate the health and wellbeing effects of subsidized access to long-term care (LTC). Our analysis exploits the staggered implementation of Spain’s 2007 System of Autonomy and Care for Dependent People (SAAD), which expanded publicly funded and universal LTC subsidies and supports, as well as its subsequent reform. Using two decades worth of administrative and survey data and leveraging exogenous regional and individual-level variation in program exposure, we find that access to SAAD benefits reduces the care receiver’s depressive symptoms by about 1 percentage point, increases its survival probability by 2.6–3 percentage points, and raises its life satisfaction by 0.24–0.50 scale points. Cost-effectiveness estimates indicate that the implied cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained lies below commonly accepted efficiency thresholds for public health spending in Europe. These findings document sizeable health returns and efficiency gains from publicly subsidized LTC provision. |
| Keywords: | lomg-term care subsidies;long-term care supports;old age care;Spain;mortality;cost per QALY;survival;mental health;life satisfaction |
| JEL: | I18 J14 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–10–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140775 |
| By: | Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Mitchell, Ann E. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines differences and similarities betweenfour prominent concepts in the literature on social justice:equality of opportunity, social mobility, Sen’s capabilities, and meritocracy. We review the canonical economic modelof equality of opportunity and discuss how the dominantapproach to measuring inequality of opportunity (IOp)relates to the measurement of intergenerational mobility, and that both concepts can be considered versions of acommon framework, namely that of inherited inequality.Eliminating systematic disparities among groups of peoplewith different inherited characteristics is closely related toensuring that opportunities are equalised between them:people may still make different choices, but they face the same choice sets. We argue that this interpretation is close in spirit to Sen’s view that people, being vastly diverse, will make different choices, but societies ought to strive to provide them with equal capabilities, from which to choose functionings they have reason to value. There are important differences between the two approaches, but IOp and inherited inequality may be seen as a coarse operationalisation of Sen’s concern with inequality incapabilities. All three of these concepts differ rather fundamentally from meritocracy, even though it too may have a (subsidiary) role to play in a good society. |
| Keywords: | inequality of opportunity;mobility;capabilities;meritocracy |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–10–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:141043 |
| By: | David Card; Jesse Rothstein; Moises Yi |
| Abstract: | We use data on 44, 000 twin pairs observed as adolescents in the 2000 Census, linked to their earnings 20 years later, to study the heritability of labor market outcomes. We extend the Classical Twins Design (CTD), which identifies heritability from contrasts between monozygotic and dizygotic twins, to settings where an analyst does not observe zygosity but can measure outcomes for same-sex and opposite-sex twins. We also allow for the presence of a family- and sex-specific component affecting same-sex siblings but only partly shared by opposite-sex siblings. Our extended model identifies heritability from the difference-in-differences of same-sex vs. opposite-sex twins vs. siblings. The estimates indicate strong heritability (h2 » 0.36) of log earnings. Using an AKM (Abowd et al., 1999) decomposition that separates the person-specific component of earnings from employer-specific pay premiums, we find that both components are heritable. The heritability of employer pay premiums, however, is mainly driven by same-sex twins who work at the same firm, suggesting that social interactions may lead to an over-estimate of the genetic component in earnings. Excluding siblings who work together leads to estimates of the heritability of log earnings that are 15% lower. Similar biases may be present in CTD-based estimates of heritability for other social outcomes like education. |
| JEL: | C31 D31 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-57 |
| By: | Jonas Maibom; Trine Schack; Rune Vejlin |
| Abstract: | Using Danish administrative data from 1980–2023, we analyze lifetime income (both earnings and net-income) inequality and its evolution across cohorts. Earnings inequality rises with age from midlife onward and is highest among the low educated and lowest among those with medium education. Differences in employment attachment — such as non-employment and part-time work — account for 30–60 percent of lifetime earnings dispersion, and are particularly important among the low educated. Weak employment attachment is a key driver of lifetime earnings inequality and is closely linked to exposure to adverse shocks such as unemployment and health-related events. Lifetime earnings inequality has risen across cohorts among the low educated, partly through growing dispersion in employment attachment. In moving from earnings to net-income, transfers account for roughly five times as much of the inequality reduction as taxes, but this equalizing effect has weakened over time. Our results highlight the role of employment dynamics and social insurance for lifetime inequality. |
| Keywords: | lifetime earnings inequality, employment attachment, income redistribution, tax and transfer system |
| JEL: | D31 J31 J64 H24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13072 |
| By: | Kaiser, Caspar; Oparina, Ekaterina; Oswald, Andrew J. |
| Abstract: | This paper uses micro data on UK suicides to implement a new test of relative-deprivation theory. Research into the potential consequences of relative comparisons had in the past had to rely on subjective data on wellbeing or on particular types of biomarker information. With information that was released under strict confidentiality requirements by the Office for National Statistics, we here report the first econometric results that are able to draw upon full census-matched micro-level records with register data on suicides in the United Kingdom. The paper’s key result is that suicide risk is greatest, ceteris paribus, in rich areas. Thus the long-standing belief that it is hazardous to live in a deprived place appears to be incorrect. For reasons explained in the paper, we believe it is possible that our estimates may understate the extent of the suicide risk. |
| Keywords: | relative income;despair;suicide;relative comparisons |
| JEL: | I31 C25 |
| Date: | 2026–10–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:141047 |
| By: | Einiö, Elias; Feng, Josh; Jaravel, Xavier |
| Abstract: | What are the implications of unequal access to innovation careers for the direction of innovation and inequality? Leveraging novel linked datasets in the United States and Finland, we document that innovators create products more likely to be purchased by consumers like them in terms of gender, socioeconomic status, and age. Homophily exists both within narrow product categories and across industries, and has been stable in recent decades. Incorporating this “social push” channel into a growth model, we estimate that unequal access to innovation careers has a large effect on cost-of-living inequality and long-run growth. |
| Keywords: | direction of innovation;entrepreneurship;inequality;economic growth |
| JEL: | O31 O33 O41 |
| Date: | 2026–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:130164 |
| By: | Shruti Jha (University of California, San Diego); John A. List (The University of Chicago Department of Economics and Australian National University and also NBER); Rebecca C. Royer (The University of Chicago Department of Economics); Anya Samek (University of California, San Diego Rady School of Management and NBER) |
| Abstract: | Do early investments in parents pay off even when treatment effects for children appear to fade out quickly? We answer this question by leveraging a field experiment in which households with 3-5 year-old children were randomized into a parenting program, a preschool, or a control group, combined with a natural experiment (Covid-19 school closures) that occurred ten years later. Prior to the closures, treatment effects on academic achievement had faded to zero across all groups. Yet, with Covid-19 school closures, effects of the parenting program re-emerge: test scores in control and preschool groups drop by roughly 0.25-0.30 SD, whereas scores in the parenting group drop by only 0.11 SD (difference: p = 0.01). Our findings suggest that parenting programs can generate latent human capital that only becomes visible when complementary school inputs are removed. This result is consonant with parental and school investments acting as substitutes in skill production. Because this latent parental capacity pays off precisely when school inputs fail, standard measurement tools for early childhood programs can miss crucial state-contingent value. |
| JEL: | C93 I26 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2026-131 |