Papers

In 2017, over 15 million workers (about 10 percent of the total U.S. workforce) were in alternative work arrangements. In this economic analysis, Ryan Nunn and Jimmy O'Donnell explore the characteristics of these workers, analyze their unique economic outcomes, and assess policy reforms that can help provide more security for these workers.

This interactive allows users to find out how many people and SNAP households lived in places that would have lost the protection of a SNAP work requirement waiver during the Great Recession (in 2009) and during an expansion (in 2018) had the Trump Administration's final rule been in place.

A well-functioning health-care sector supports well-being and is a prerequisite for a well-functioning economy. Unfortunately, the problems with U.S. health care—from high prices to excessive administrative costs to insufficient competition—are substantial. These 12 facts about the economics of U.S. health care provide context for important policy discussions.

The United States spends a larger share of its GDP on health care than any other advanced economy. This high private sector health-care spending in the United States is driven mostly by higher prices, with little evidence to suggest that high prices reflect better quality of care. In this proposal, Michael Chernew, Leemore Dafny, and Maximilian Pany discuss how price regulations could be used to constrain commercial provider prices in an efficient manner.

U.S. health-care spending on administrative costs far exceeds the amount necessary to deliver effective health care. David Cutler proposes several reforms to reduce administrative health-care costs and improve satisfaction for both patients and providers.    

Martin Gaynor of Carnegie Mellon University describes the substantial consolidation that has occurred in health-care markets, showing that it is has generally resulted in higher prices without gains in quality or other improvements. Gaynor proposes three types of policy reforms that would increase competition in health care and improve market functioning.

Taxation is an enduring focus of economic policy debates. This book presents a series of policy options, authored by leading tax experts and backed by rigorous analysis, to increase federal revenue in ways that are both efficient and equitable. The policies include better tax enforcement, improved, corporate taxation, increased taxation of wealth, and taxes on some transactions. 

How the government raises tax revenue has critical implications for economic prosperity. Moss, Nunn, and Shambaugh provide a framework for assessing various tax policies and their implications for growth and inequality.

One driver of high inequality and low intergenerational mobility is the inefficient and inequitable way that inheritances are currently taxed. In this proposal, Lily Batchelder describes reforms that would raise revenue and put inherited income on a more level playing field with income earned from work.  

The United States has high levels of income and wealth inequality, in part because of shortcomings in how we tax concentrated income and wealth. To raise revenue and more effectively tax income from wealth, Greg Leiserson explores several key design considerations and discusses four potential approaches to wealth taxation. 

The federal government requires more funding to sustain economic growth and opportunity, and raising such funds may require new sources of tax revenue. In this proposal, Antonio Weiss and Laura Kawano propose a financial transaction tax that would raise substantial revenue (largely from high earners) without hindering market functioning. 

Retirement and health-care commitments necessitate steadily rising spending at a time when the federal government is already missing other opportunities to make valuable public investments. William Gale proposes a value-added tax—paired with a refundable credit to all households—in order to raise revenue in an efficient and progressive manner. 

A proposal by Kimberly Clausing offers near-term and fundamental reforms to improve the taxation of multinational companies. Formulary apportionment would raise substantial new revenue without harming U.S. competitiveness.  

A proposal by Jason Furman offers several reforms to the corporate tax code to improve the tax base and increase tax rates. This combination makes it possible to increase growth, well-being, and revenue.  

In the coming decades, federal spending will need to grow just to enable the government to continue to provide the services it does today. Natasha Sarin, Lawrence Summers, and Joe Kupferberg propose a suite of tax reforms that will raise revenue by broadening the tax base and strengthening tax enforcement. 

Substantial physical, biological and economic damages will occur as a result of climate change in the absence of strong policy action. In this set of economic facts, The Hamilton Project and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research document the potential extent of these damages, while also weighing the relative costs and benefits of various policy interventions.

Because industrial sectors contribute a large fraction of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, addressing their emissions is an essential element of combating climate change. In this paper, Carolyn Fischer of Resources for the Future proposes using tradable performance standards to reduce industrial carbon emissions.

In this paper, David Popp points out that despite the recent progress made in clean technology innovation, much remains to be done in order to decarbonize our economy. He describes the evidence on different public policy approaches to spurring more clean energy innovation. Grounded in that evidence, Popp provides a set of guidelines for how best to target energy R&D investments and deploy innovations.  

If a robust carbon price is successfully implemented, other regulations that target carbon emissions may become redundant, less effective, or more expensive. Roberton Williams puts forward proposals to suspend or modify current climate policies that will become unnecessary or inefficient after a sufficiently high carbon price is implemented.

In this strategy paper, The Hamilton Project explores the decline in U.S. LFPR as well as patterns by age, gender, race, and education. We then assess potential explanations and describe numerous Hamilton Project policy proposals that would raise labor force participation.

The Hamilton Project finds that changing employment and school enrollment patterns have contributed to declining labor force participation among youth, aged 16 to 24.

The Hamilton Project finds that the decline in private sector union membership is economically important for the future of labor. Unions can lift wages, reduce inequality and shape how work is organized, among other effects.

Slowdowns in the economy are inevitable. While it may be tempting to rely on Federal Reserve policy as a lone response to recessions, this would be a mistake; we know that fiscal stimulus is effective. Rather than wait for a crisis to strike before designing discretionary fiscal policy, we would be better served by preparing in advance. Enacting evidence-based automatic stabilizer proposals before the next recession will help the next recovery start faster, make job creation stronger, and restore confidence to businesses and households.

Automatic stabilizers are designed to expand during an economic downturn and contract during an expansion—providing timely and temporary fiscal stimulus. Boushey, Nunn, O’Donnell, and Shambaugh assess the various policy responses available to the federal government and argues that when well designed, automatic stabilizers can be an effective part of the policy tool kit for responding to recessions.