IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/wp-09-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The effect of disability insurance receipt on labor supply

Author

Listed:
  • Eric French
  • Jae Song

Abstract

This paper estimates the effect of the Disability Insurance program on labor supply. We find that 30% of denied applicants and 15% of allowed applicants work several years after a disability determination decision. The earnings elasticity with respect to the after tax wage is 0.8. However, the labor supply of those over age 55, college graduates, and those with mental illness is not sensitive to allowance of benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric French & Jae Song, 2009. "The effect of disability insurance receipt on labor supply," Working Paper Series WP-09-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-09-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2009/wp2009_05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip de Jong & Maarten Lindeboom & Bas van der Klaauw, 2011. "Screening Disability Insurance Applications," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 106-129, February.
    2. Chen, Susan & van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2008. "The work disincentive effects of the disability insurance program in the 1990s," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 757-784, February.
    3. Bound, John & Burkhauser, Richard V., 1999. "Economic analysis of transfer programs targeted on people with disabilities," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 51, pages 3417-3528, Elsevier.
    4. James J. Heckman & Edward Vytlacil, 2005. "Structural Equations, Treatment Effects, and Econometric Policy Evaluation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(3), pages 669-738, May.
    5. David Autor & Nicole Maestas & Kathleen Mullen & Alexander Strand, 2011. "Does Delay Cause Decay? The Effect of Administrative Decision Time on the Labor Force Participation and Earnings of Disability Applicants," Working Papers wp258, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    6. Jerry A. Hausman & Whitney K. Newey & Tiemen Woutersen & John C. Chao & Norman R. Swanson, 2012. "Instrumental variable estimation with heteroskedasticity and many instruments," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), pages 211-255, July.
    7. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    8. Abadie, Alberto, 2003. "Semiparametric instrumental variable estimation of treatment response models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 231-263, April.
    9. James J. Heckman & Sergio Urzua & Edward Vytlacil, 2006. "Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 389-432, August.
    10. Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen & Alexander Strand, 2013. "Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1797-1829, August.
    11. Parsons, Donald O, 1991. "The Health and Earnings of Rejected Disability Insurance Applicants: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1419-1426, December.
    12. repec:aei:rpbook:24945 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. David H. Autor & Mark G. Duggan, 2006. "The Growth in the Social Security Disability Rolls: A Fiscal Crisis Unfolding," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 71-96, Summer.
    14. Bound, John, 1991. "The Health and Earnings of Rejected Disability Insurance Applicants: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1427-1434, December.
    15. repec:mpr:mprres:7075 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Till von Wachter & Jae Song & Joyce Manchester, 2011. "Trends in Employment and Earnings of Allowed and Rejected Applicants to the Social Security Disability Insurance Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3308-3329, December.
    17. Jianting Hu & Kajal Lahiri & Denton R. Vaughan & Bernard Wixon, 2001. "A Structural Model Of Social Security'S Disability Determination Process," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 348-361, May.
    18. Lahiri, Kajal & Song, Jae & Wixon, Bernard, 2008. "A model of Social Security Disability Insurance using matched SIPP/Administrative data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 4-20, July.
    19. Benitez-Silva, Hugo & Buchinsky, Moshe & Chan, Hiu Man & Rust, John & Sheidvasser, Sofia, 1999. "An empirical analysis of the social security disability application, appeal, and award process," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 147-178, June.
    20. Joseph J. Doyle Jr., 2007. "Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Foster Care," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1583-1610, December.
    21. Bound, John, 1989. "The Health and Earnings of Rejected Disability Insurance Applicants," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 482-503, June.
    22. Julie Berry Cullen & Brian A Jacob & Steven Levitt, 2006. "The Effect of School Choice on Participants: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1191-1230, September.
    23. Mark Duggan & Scott A. Imberman, 2009. "Why Are the Disability Rolls Skyrocketing? The Contribution of Population Characteristics, Economic Conditions, and Program Generosity," NBER Chapters, in: Health at Older Ages: The Causes and Consequences of Declining Disability among the Elderly, pages 337-379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Su Liu & David C. Stapleton, "undated". "Longitudinal Statistics on Work Activity and Use of Employment Supports for New Social Security Disability Insurance Beneficiaries," Mathematica Policy Research Reports fe4441401f1549fc8ef75bad7, Mathematica Policy Research.
    25. Julie Berry Cullen & Brian A. Jacob & Steven Levitt, 2003. "The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries," NBER Working Papers 10113, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Gina Livermore & David C. Stapleton & Meghan O'Toole, 2011. "Health Care Costs Are a Key Driver of Growth in Federal and State Assistance to Working-Age People with Disabilities," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 2f246c815ac24665828c0079e, Mathematica Policy Research.
    27. Richard Burkhauser & Mary C. Daly, 2011. "The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 7631, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric French & Jae Song, 2012. "The effect of Disability Insurance receipt on labor supply: a dynamic analysis," Working Paper Series WP-2012-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    2. Black, Bernard & French, Eric & McCauley, Jeremy & Song, Jae, 2024. "The effect of disability insurance receipt on mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    3. Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen & Alexander Strand, 2013. "Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1797-1829, August.
    4. Hamish Low & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Disability Insurance: Theoretical Trade‐Offs and Empirical Evidence," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 129-164, March.
    5. Andreas Haller & Stefan Staubli & Josef Zweimüller, 2024. "Designing Disability Insurance Reforms: Tightening Eligibility Rules or Reducing Benefits?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(1), pages 79-110, January.
    6. Shu, Pian, 2015. "Asset accumulation and labor force participation of disability insurance applicants," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 26-40.
    7. David H. Autor & Mark Duggan & Kyle Greenberg & David S. Lyle, 2016. "The Impact of Disability Benefits on Labor Supply: Evidence from the VA's Disability Compensation Program," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 31-68, July.
    8. Andreas Ravndal Kostol & Magne Mogstad, 2014. "How Financial Incentives Induce Disability Insurance Recipients to Return to Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 624-655, February.
    9. Gordon B. Dahl & Andreas Ravndal Kostøl & Magne Mogstad, 2014. "Family Welfare Cultures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1711-1752.
    10. Garcia-Mandicó, Sílvia & García-Gómez, Pilar & Gielen, Anne C. & O’Donnell, Owen, 2020. "Earnings responses to disability insurance stringency," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Barbara Broadway & Duncan McVicar, 2021. "Reducing the Generosity and Increasing the Conditionality of Welfare Benefits for People with Disability: “Turning the Supertanker” or “Squeezing the Balloon”?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 848-873, July.
    12. Meyer, Bruce D. & Mok, Wallace K.C., 2019. "Disability, earnings, income and consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 51-69.
    13. Richard V. Burkhauser & Mary C. Daly & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2016. "Protecting working-age people with disabilities: experiences of four industrialized nations [Absicherung von Personen mit Erwerbsminderung: Erfahrungen aus vier Industrieländern]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 49(4), pages 367-386, December.
    14. Slack, Sean & Ulph, David, 2014. "Optimal Universal and Categorical Benefits with Classification Errors and Imperfect Enforcement," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-13, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    15. Mark Duggan & Perry Singleton & Jae Song, 2005. "Aching to Retire? The Rise in the Full Retirement Age and its Impact on the Disability Rolls," NBER Working Papers 11811, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Moore, Timothy J., 2015. "The employment effects of terminating disability benefits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 30-43.
    17. Deuchert, Eva & Eugster, Beatrix, 2019. "Income and substitution effects of a disability insurance reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 1-14.
    18. David Autor & Nicole Maestas & Kathleen Mullen & Alexander Strand, 2011. "Does Delay Cause Decay? The Effect of Administrative Decision Time on the Labor Force Participation and Earnings of Disability Applicants," Working Papers wp258, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    19. Chen, Susan & van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2008. "The work disincentive effects of the disability insurance program in the 1990s," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 757-784, February.
    20. Pilar García‐Gómez & Anne C. Gielen, 2018. "Mortality effects of containing moral hazard: Evidence from disability insurance reform," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 606-621, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Disability insurance; Labor supply;

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-09-05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.