Andrew Leigh
Federal Member for Fraser
Who Benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit? Incidence Among Recipients, Coworkers and Firms
Abstract How are hourly wages affected by the Earned Income Tax Credit? Two strategies are utilized to determine the relationship between the credit and hourly wages. First, I use variation in state EITC supplements, which magnify the effect of the federal EITC. I find that a 10 percent increase in the generosity of the EITC [...]
Does Fiscal Policy Reduce Unemployment? Evidence from Pork-Barrel Spending
Andrew Leigh Christine Neill Abstract Studies of the effect of government spending on unemployment are potentially confounded by reverse causality. To address the endogeneity problem, we exploit variation in a pork- barrel road-building program, and find that higher government expenditure on road-building substantially reduces local unemployment. JEL Codes: E24, E62, H30, H54, Keywords: fiscal policy, [...]
