Research

Selected Working Papers and Work in Progress


September 2024. Reject and resubmit, American Economic Review   

Abstract: We present a dynamic general equilibrium model of homelessness calibrated to the U.S. data and evaluate the effectiveness of several policies in the fight against homelessness. The model is designed to capture the most at-risk groups, producing a diverse homeless population that includes a significant portion experiencing short-term homelessness due to labor ;/.,mmarket shocks and a smaller portion facing chronic homelessness mostly due to health shocks. Our policy experiments reveal that the existing housing voucher program effectively reduces homelessness especially when the general equilibrium effects are accounted for. We show that increasing the reach of the program for eligible individuals can lead to further declines in the aggregate homeless rate relative to alternative forms of subsidies. However, policies targeted to help decrease homelessness are not as popular as general poverty reduction tools such as cash subsidies, which generate a larger welfare gain in our experiments.


February 2024.  Revised and resubmitted at Review of Economic Studies     Online Appendix       

Abstract: We study the effect of poor health on labor supply and its implications for lifetime earnings inequality. Using a dynamic panel approach, we provide empirical evidence that negative health shocks significantly reduce earnings. The effect is primarily driven by the participation margin and is concentrated among the less educated and those in poor health. Next, we develop a life cycle model of labor supply featuring risky and heterogeneous health profiles that affect individuals’ productivity, likelihood of access to social insurance, disutility from work, mortality, and medical expenses. Individuals can either work or not work and apply for social security disability insurance (SSDI/SSI). Eliminating health inequality in our model reduces the variance of log lifetime (accumulated) earnings by 28 percent at age 55. About 60 percent of this effect is due to the impact of poor health on the probability of obtaining SSDI/SSI benefits. Despite this, we show that eliminating the SSDI/SSI program reduces ex ante welfare.    

      



Publications 


17."Intergenerational Transfers, Differential Fertility and Wealth Inequality". (with Aaron Cooke, Umesh Ghimire and Hyun Lee)

Macroeconomic Dynamics, forthcoming. 

16."Deregulation as a Source of China's Economic Growth". (with Tianxu Chen, Shiyuan Pan and Kai Xu)

Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2024, 28(3): 745-755.

15."Population Aging, Health Care, and the Macroeconomy: An Introduction", (with Kevin X. D. Huang)

International Studies of Economics, 2024, Volume 19(1).

14."Rising Wealth Inequality: Intergenerational Links, Entrepreneurship, and the Decline in Interest Rate" (with Ayse İmrohoroğlu) 

Journal of Monetary Economics, Volume 127, April 2022, Pages 86-104.

13."The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle" (with Roozbeh Hosseini and Karen Kopecky)

Review of Economic Dynamics, Volume 45, July 2022, Pages 237-263.      Online Appendix

12.“Does the early retirement policy really benefit women?” (with Hyun Lee and Fei Zou)

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 196, April 2022, Pages 330-345.

11.“Household Saving, Financial Constraints, and the Current Account in China”. (with Ayse İmrohoroğlu), 

International Economic Review, Volume 61, Issue 1, February 2020.                            

10."The Chinese Saving Rate: Long-Term Care Risks, Family Insurance, and Demographics” (with Ayse İmrohoroğlu), 

Journal of Monetary Economics, Volume 96, June 2018.     

Discussion in VoxChina                                 

9.“Employment-based Health Insurance and Aggregate Labor Supply”. (with Zhigang Feng), 

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 154, October 2018.                               

8."Intergenerational Transfers and China’s Social Security Reform" (with Ayse İmrohoroğlu),                               

Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Volume 11, May 2018.

(Special issue on “Macroeconomics and Aging,” edited by Juan Carlos Conesa and Tim Kehoe) 

7."Social Insurance, Private Health Insurance and Individual Welfare", 

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Volume 78, May 2017.

6."Health Spending and Public Pension: Evidence from Panel Data" (with Yonghong An and Rong Zhou),

Applied Economics, Volume 48, Issue 11, 2016.                                                     

5."The Impact of the Correlation between Health Expenditure and Survival Probability on the Demand for Insurance",

European Economic Review, Volume 75, April 2015.    

Discussion in NEP-DGE Blog    

4."Social Security and the Rise in Health Spending",

Journal of Monetary Economics, Volume 64, May 2014.

Discussions in Economic Logic and LSE's USAPP Blog      

3."War Finance and the Baby Boom",                                                                                          

Review of Economic Dynamics, Volume 17(3), July 2014.

2."Home Production and the Welfare Cost of Labor Supply Tax Distortions" (with John Whalley),   

Applied Economic Letters, Volume 20, Issue 1, 2013.                                                   

1."Social Security, Differential Fertility, and the Dynamics of the Earnings Distribution",      

The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics (Contributions), 2011, 11(1), Article 26.