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Papers by Elizabeth Powers

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020

An expert on family-centered policies, including child care, she has assisted the Illinois Depart... more An expert on family-centered policies, including child care, she has assisted the Illinois Department of Human Services and other policy actors.

So long as child support enforcement was entirely the legal domain of the states, it was nearly i... more So long as child support enforcement was entirely the legal domain of the states, it was nearly impossible to pursue claims across state lines, and interstate claims were characterized as the “black hole” of child support enforcement. The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) clarified lines of authority, opened state IV-D agencies and courts to interstate claimants, and invented powerful new tools for pursuing cross-state claims. This paper uses Survey of Income and Program Participation data spanning the reform era to assess the success of this policy. The potential endogeneity of interstate moves with the policy regime may bias conventional regression estimates. A conditional difference-in-difference matching estimator is implemented instead. The findings indicate greatly increased administrative enforcement activity for interstate cases subsequent to UIFSA. This activity increased formal support agreements and identified greater amounts of support owed. There is also evi...

Policy Research Working Papers, 2021

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encoura... more The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland), 1995

Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland), 1994

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2007

This paper is the first to analyze eligibility and participation spells and estimate dynamic mode... more This paper is the first to analyze eligibility and participation spells and estimate dynamic models of SSI participation by the aged. We first describe eligibility and participation spells and estimate competing-risk models of the determinants of transitions. Next, we present evidence of extensive measurement error in the expected SSI benefit and the associated imputed eligibility status of sample members. We compare and contrast two approaches to ameliorating this error. A cross-section approach exploits self-reports of participants' benefits, and a longitudinal approach makes inferences from time variation in the computed benefit. We find that the hazard model estimates vary little with regard to whether or which particular measurement error correction is employed. Finally, the longitudinal patterns of eligibility and participation suggest that take-up rates among the persistently eligible are nearly 80 percent.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2006

Previous researchers have noted that the 'categorical' Medicaid eligibility accompanying the welf... more Previous researchers have noted that the 'categorical' Medicaid eligibility accompanying the welfare programs Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) often far exceeds the value of these programs' cash benefits. It may be the case that the accompanying health insurance, not the cash benefit, is often the decisive factor in welfare participation. If so, welfare participation should decrease when cash and health insurance benefits are unbundled. We present a simple model of program participation with heterogeneous valuation of health insurance and transaction costs of participation. We evaluate the following four implications of the model: 1) SSI participation declines with the expansion of alternative routes to Medicaid (i.e., noncategorical Medicaid); 2) the availability of noncategorical Medicaid increases Medicaid participation among SSI nonparticipating eligibles; 3) the average SSI benefit collected by welfare recipients is higher when noncategorical Medicaid is available; and 4) the average SSI benefit rejected by nonparticipating SSI eligibles is higher when noncategorical Medicaid is available. Overall, the findings on the model's testable implications are mixed. The estimates imply strikingly large effects of the presence of alternative routes to Medicaid on both SSI and Medicaid participation, but the results for the hypotheses about SSI benefit amounts are sensitive to controls for recipient characteristics.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011

This paper uses data from the Mexican Family Life Survey to estimate the impact of a household me... more This paper uses data from the Mexican Family Life Survey to estimate the impact of a household member's migration to the United States on the cognitive development of children remaining in Mexico. While there is no developmental effect of a child's sibling migrating to the United States, there is an adverse effect when another household member-typically the child's parent-migrates. This is particularly true for preschool to early-school-age children with older siblings, for whom the effect of parental migration is comparable to speaking an indigenous language at home or having a mother with very low educational attainment. Additionally, household-member migration to the United States affects how children spend their time in ways that may influence and/or be influenced by cognitive development.

Journal of Labor Research, 2009

Fast-food establishments in Illinois and Indiana were surveyed during a period of statemandated m... more Fast-food establishments in Illinois and Indiana were surveyed during a period of statemandated minimum wage increases in Illinois. While entry-level wages of Illinois establishments rose substantially in response to the mandated increases, there is little evidence that Illinois establishments ameliorated wage increases by delaying scheduled raises or reducing fringe benefit offerings. There is little evidence of 'labor-labor' substitution in favor of women, better educated, or teenaged workers, or increased worker tenure at the new wage, but weak evidence of increased food prices. In contrast, there are large declines in part-time positions and workers' hours in Illinois relative to Indiana. Aggregate figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics support relative declines in total fast-food employment in 'downstate' Illinois counties, as hypothesized. However, establishment's responses do not appear proportionate to the strength of the minimum wage change. Acknowledgments: This project would not exist with Ron Baiman and Joe Persky, who first approached me about collecting original data on the Illinois minimum wage change. Their participation in the survey design, surveyor training, and data collection efforts is greatly appreciated. The Russell Sage Foundation provided generous financial support for this project. Students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois at Chicago conducted the surveys of fast-food outlets. Veronica Alaimo and Maghaisvarei Sellakumaran provided excellent graduate research assistance and Kathleen Dorrestein ably assisted with data entry. Alan Krueger and David Neumark provided help and advice at early stages of this work. Nick Powers provided helpful comments on numerous drafts. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for many helpful comments that greatly improved the paper. Responsibility for errors rests with the author alone.

Economic Commentary, 1994

ECONOMIC REVIEW-FEDERAL RESERVE BANK …, 1995

Journal of Public Economics, 1998

provided research assistance with the public-use data. We are grateful to Howard Iams and Minh Hu... more provided research assistance with the public-use data. We are grateful to Howard Iams and Minh Huynh of the Social Security Administration and Claudia Sahm of the University of Michigan for help accessing and interpreting administrative records. We also thank Roger Gordon of the University of Michigan for initially stimulating our thinking on SSI-SSER interactions. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

American Economic Review, 2001

Economic Development Quarterly, 2000

Page 1. http://edq.sagepub.com/ Economic Development Quarterly http://edq.sagepub. com/content/14... more Page 1. http://edq.sagepub.com/ Economic Development Quarterly http://edq.sagepub. com/content/14/4/323 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.1177/089124240001400401 2000 14: 323 Economic Development ...

The essays in this volume discuss such timely topics as demographic change and the outlook for So... more The essays in this volume discuss such timely topics as demographic change and the outlook for Social Security and Medicare in the United States; long term decision making under uncertainty; the effect of changing family structure on government spending; how the structure of public retirement policies has encouraged early retirement in some countries and not others; the response of local community spending to demographic change; and related topics. Contributors include many of the world's leading public finance economists ...

Economic Commentary, 1995

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program in the United States creates incentives for potent... more The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program in the United States creates incentives for potential aged recipients to reduce labor supply prior to becoming eligible, and past research finds evidence of such behavior for older men. There may be a migration response to across-state variation in SSI benefits, which is of interest in its own right and can bias estimates of

Data from the October 1992 Child Supplement Module of the Current Population Survey are used to e... more Data from the October 1992 Child Supplement Module of the Current Population Survey are used to examine the impact of child disability on the labor force participation decisions of married and unmarried mothers. Estimated reductions in labor force participation are large. For single mothers the effect is similar to that of having a baby. The effect for married mothers is smaller, but comparable to the average effect of an additional child. The effects of disability are found to be greater for black mothers and smaller but still negative in more educated households. In general, the relative burden of a disability is low for families with young children but grows as the household ages. Single equation estimates may be biased if disability reporting is endogenous with labor force participation. Two-stage estimates are explored using specific health conditions and other variables as instruments for disability. On the whole, endogeneity of the disability variable is not strongly supported by the data, although single-equation estimates may understate the impact of disability on female heads' labor force participation. The findings are robust with respect to a variety of specification changes.

We use public-use micro-data linked to Social Security Administration records to re- examine the ... more We use public-use micro-data linked to Social Security Administration records to re- examine the impact of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program on work disincentives among older individuals nearing the age of eligibility for SSI for the aged and likely to utilize the program. The administrative records provide significant advantages relative to past research, and yield strong evidence that SSI