Progress 10/01/00 to 09/30/05
Outputs
The work on this project has terminated at Cornell University. The research on factors affecting the decisions of people with work-limiting health conditions to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments now has a working paper using an economic model. This model includes program characteristics such as the level of benefits and the percentage of applicants approved, personal characteristics such as age, and a measure of whether the employer accommodated the employee at the time the health condition appeared. Further extensions will examine the effect of the Americans with Disabilities Act and macroeconomic conditions. In a different research project, work was also done on the effect of regulation of non-custodial fathers on those fathers' contact with their children. Finally, in purely econometric research I studied some esoteric math with real implications for making policy evaluation, my major interest, less restrictive for purely technical
reasons.
Impacts
The research on the SSDI program will be used to estimate caseloads and impacts of possible changes in the rules for eligibility and benefits. The study of fathers was evaluating the impact of changes in welfare rules and paternity establishment rules on the children involved. The econometric research has no direct impact on stakeholder populations, but it could free econometric models from some unnecessary technical restrictions in evaluating policies, making the evaluations more useful.
Publications
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Progress 01/01/02 to 12/31/02
Outputs
The research reported last year on factors affecting the decisions of people with work-limiting health conditions to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments now has a working paper using an economic model. This model includes program characteristics such as the level of benefits and the percentage of applicants approved, personal characteristics such as age, and a measure of whether the employer accommodated the employee at the time the health condition appeared. Further extensions will examine the effect of the Americans with Disabilities Act and macroeconomic conditions. A related paper has been published in the Social Security Bulletin. In a different research project, I am now working on the effect of regulation of non-custodial fathers on those fathers' contact with their children. Finally, in purely econometric research I am studying some esoteric math with real implications for making policy evaluation, my major interest, less restrictive
for purely technical reasons.
Impacts
The research on the SSDI program will be used to estimate caseloads and impacts of possible changes in the rules for eligibility and benefits. The study of fathers is evaluating the impact of changes in welfare rules and paternity establishment rules on the children involved. The econometric research has no direct impact on stakeholder populations, but it could free econometric models from some unnecessary technical restrictions in evaluating policies, making the evaluations more useful.
Publications
- Butler, J.S., Burkhauser, R.V. and Weathers II, R.R. 2002. How Policy Variables Influence the Timing of Social Security Disability Insurance Applications, Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 64, No. 1 (2001-2002).
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Progress 01/01/01 to 12/31/01
Outputs
The research has produced one publication on factors affecting application for SSDI by persons with work limiting health conditions. That paper used hazard models; a paper in progress uses option value and dynamic programming models. Two papers extend the analysis of adoption using hazard models and a very general specification of the unmeasured aspects of the children involved. Another application considers the effects of family organization, extended or nuclear, on wages in Suriname. In that case, correlations of observations in a probit model are allowed. Finally, two papers extend the econometrics directly. One studies sampling weights, while the other studies a relatively unrestricted model of multinomial choice. Recent work emphasizes SSDI and some new research on educational outcomes and the relationship between success in university education and having children.
Impacts
The research comments on a variety of topics, in each case considering a policy area by extending existing results to include corrections for econometric problems or the reduction of econometric assumptions. The overall impact is the application of recent econometrics to policy questions.
Publications
- Horowitz, A. and Butler, J.S. 2000. Labor Supply and Wages Among Nuclear and Extended Households: The Surinamese Experiment. Journal of Development Studies 36(2000):1-29.
- Picone, G. and Butler, J.S. 2000. Semiparametric Estimation of Multiple Equation Models. Econometric Theory 16(2000):551-575.
- Avery, R. and Butler, J.S. 2001. Timeliness in the Adoptive Placement of Photolisted Children: The New York State Blue Books, Adoption Quarterly 4(2001):19-46.
- J.S. Butler 2000. Efficiency Results of MLE and GMM Estimation using Sampling Weights. Journal of Econometrics 96(2000):25-37.
- Avery, R. and Butler, J.S. 2001. Time Dependence and Unmeasured Heterogeneity in Administrative Data Analysis: Application to Adoption Photolisting Services Data, Social Service Review (2001).
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Progress 01/01/00 to 12/31/00
Outputs
A variety of topics will be investigated involving household behaviour, with the theme being the application of current econometric methods wherever they are useful to answer policy questions in a convincing, unrestrictive way. Research topics include: market work and applications for SSDI by persons with disabilities, using dynamic models to examine the influence of benefit level and rate of approval of applications; level and effects of community and individual health using factor analytic models; demand for domestic animals; and work and wages in Suriname, a developing country, to assess the difference between nuclear and extended families.
Impacts
When one wants to know the effect of a policy or price on what people do, the answer should depend minimally on mathematical assumptions. This research uses recent econometrics to understand policy impacts and markets in the U. S. and developing countries.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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