Brown University
My research interests are in the areas of labor economics and applied microeconometrics, with a special focus on the economics of issues relating to the low-income population in the U.S.. A large portion of my research in labor economics has concerned the labor supply decisions of female heads of family and its response to the U.S. welfare system. My research on the welfare system has led to publications on the AFDC, Food Stamp, and Medicaid programs. I have also published research on the labor supply and family structure effects of social insurance programs, including Social Security, unemployment insurance, and disability insurance, as well as of the U.S. income tax system. Other papers have concerned trends in volatility in the U.S. labor market and trends in the labor force attachment of men and women. Part of my research also focuses on population economics and economic demography, where I have estimated economic models of marriage, cohabitation, female headship, and fertility. My methodological research has led to publications on selection bias and limited-dependent variable models, nonlinear budget constraints, panel data, attrition, duration models, and causal modeling and program evaluation.
I am the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins University, where I have worked since 1995. I also hold a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to assuming my positions at Hopkins, I was Professor of Economics at Brown University, where I taught for eleven years. I have also been a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Maryland, and worked for several years at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
I am also a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a recipient of a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Past President of the Population Association of America. I have served as Chief Editor of the American Economic Review, Coeditor of the Review of Economics and Statistics, Chief Editor of the Journal of Human Resources, and as Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Panel to Evaluate Welfare Reform. I am currently editor of Tax Policy and the Economy, a publication of the National Bureau of Economic Research which provides policy analysts in Washington with results from recent academic economic research on tax and transfer issues.