IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v76y2023i1p189-209.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employer Wage Subsidy Caps and Part-Time Work

Author

Listed:
  • Joel A. Elvery
  • C. Lockwood Reynolds
  • Shawn M. Rohlin

Abstract

Using tract-level US Census data and triple-difference estimators, the authors test whether firms increase their use of part-time workers when faced with capped wage subsidies. By limiting the maximum subsidy per worker, such subsidies create incentives for firms to increase the share of their payroll that is eligible for the subsidy by increasing use of part-time or low-wage workers. Results suggest that firms located in federal Empowerment Zones in the United States responded to the program’s capped wage subsidies by expanding their use of part-time workers, particularly in locations where the subsidy cap is likely to bind. Results also show a shift toward hiring lower-skill workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Joel A. Elvery & C. Lockwood Reynolds & Shawn M. Rohlin, 2023. "Employer Wage Subsidy Caps and Part-Time Work," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(1), pages 189-209, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:76:y:2023:i:1:p:189-209
    DOI: 10.1177/00197939221102865
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00197939221102865
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00197939221102865?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony Briant & Miren Lafourcade & Benoît Schmutz, 2015. "Can Tax Breaks Beat Geography? Lessons from the French Enterprise Zone Experience," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 88-124, May.
    2. Emmanuel Saez & Benjamin Schoefer & David Seim, 2019. "Payroll Taxes, Firm Behavior, and Rent Sharing: Evidence from a Young Workers' Tax Cut in Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1717-1763, May.
    3. Sarah Hamersma, 2011. "Why Don'T Eligible Firms Claim Hiring Subsidies? The Role Of Job Duration," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(3), pages 916-934, July.
    4. Kenneth A. Couch & Douglas J. Besharov & David Neumark, 2013. "Spurring Job Creation in Response to Severe Recessions: Reconsidering Hiring Credits," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 142-171, January.
    5. Rita Almeida & Larry Orr & David Robalino, 2014. "Wage subsidies in developing countries as a tool to build human capital: design and implementation issues," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-24, December.
    6. Dora L. Costa, 2000. "Hours of Work and the Fair Labor Standards Act: A Study of Retail and Wholesale Trade, 1938–1950," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 53(4), pages 648-664, July.
    7. C. Lockwood Reynolds & Shawn Rohlin, 2014. "Do Location-Based Tax Incentives Improve Quality Of Life And Quality Of Business Environment?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 1-32, January.
    8. Olugbenga Ajilore, 2012. "Did the Work Opportunity Tax Credit Cause Subsidized Worker Substitution?," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 26(3), pages 231-237, August.
    9. William E. Even & David A. Macpherson, 2019. "The Affordable Care Act and the Growth of Involuntary Part-Time Employment," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 72(4), pages 955-980, August.
    10. Neumark, David & Young, Timothy, 2019. "Enterprise zones, poverty, and labor market outcomes: Resolving conflicting evidence," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Matias Busso & Jesse Gregory & Patrick Kline, 2013. "Assessing the Incidence and Efficiency of a Prominent Place Based Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 897-947, April.
    12. Hanson, Andrew, 2009. "Local employment, poverty, and property value effects of geographically-targeted tax incentives: An instrumental variables approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 721-731, November.
    13. Edward C. Lorenz, 1995. "TJTC and the promise and reality of redistributive vouchering and tax credit policy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 270-290.
    14. Faulk, Dagney, 2002. "Do State Economic Development Incentives Create Jobs? An Analysis of State Employment Tax Credits," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 55(N. 2), pages 263-280, June.
    15. Bernhard Boockmann & Thomas Zwick & Andreas Ammermüller & Michael Maier, 2012. "Do Hiring Subsidies Reduce Unemployment Among Older Workers? Evidence From Natural Experiments," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 735-764, August.
    16. Sarah Hamersma, 2008. "The effects of an employer subsidy on employment outcomes: A study of the work opportunity and welfare-to-work tax credits," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 498-520.
    17. Ursula Jaenichen & Gesine Stephan, 2011. "The effectiveness of targeted wage subsidies for hard-to-place workers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(10), pages 1209-1225.
    18. Gary Burtless, 1985. "Are Targeted Wage Subsidies Harmful? Evidence from a Wage Voucher Experiment," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 39(1), pages 105-114, October.
    19. Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), 2015. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 5, number 5.
    20. Faulk, Dagney, 2002. "Do State Economic Development Incentives Create Jobs? An Analysis of State Employment Tax Credits," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 55(2), pages 263-280, June.
    21. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Stephen J. Trejo, 2000. "The Demand for Hours of Labor: Direct Evidence from California," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 38-47, February.
    22. Nicholas Kaldor, 1936. "Wage Subsidies as a Remedy for Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(6), pages 721-721.
    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. Freedman, Matthew & Khanna, Shantanu & Neumark, David, 2023. "Combining rules and discretion in economic development policy: Evidence on the impacts of the California Competes Tax Credit," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    2. Reynolds, C. Lockwood & Rohlin, Shawn M., 2015. "The effects of location-based tax policies on the distribution of household income: Evidence from the federal Empowerment Zone program," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-15.
    3. Olugbenga Ajilore, 2012. "Did the Work Opportunity Tax Credit Cause Subsidized Worker Substitution?," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 26(3), pages 231-237, August.
    4. Benjamin Schünemann & Michael Lechner & Conny Wunsch, 2015. "Do Long-Term Unemployed Workers Benefit from Targeted Wage Subsidies?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(1), pages 43-64, February.
    5. Wenhua Di & Daniel L. Millimet, 2017. "Targeted business incentives and the debt behavior of households," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 1115-1142, May.
    6. Thierry Mayer & Florian Mayneris & Loriane Py, 2017. "The impact of Urban Enterprise Zones on establishment location decisions and labor market outcomes: evidence from France," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 709-752.
    7. Neumark, David & Simpson, Helen, 2015. "Place-Based Policies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1197-1287, Elsevier.
    8. Thierry Mayer & Florian Mayneris & Loriane Py, 2017. "The impact of Urban Enterprise Zones on establishment location decisions and labor market outcomes: evidence from France," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 709-752.
    9. Andrew Hanson, 2021. "Taxes and Economic Development: An Update on the State of the Economics Literature," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(3), pages 232-253, August.
    10. Nicolás González-Pampillón & Jordi Jofre-Monseny & Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, 2020. "Can urban renewal policies reverse neighborhood ethnic dynamics? [Urban renewal after the Berlin Wall: a place-based policy evaluation]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 419-457.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3l4arseauo82kr3cm0qr8uihmg is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Binkai Chen & Ming Lu & Christopher Timmins & Kuanhu Xiang, 2019. "Spatial Misallocation: Evaluating Place-Based Policies Using a Natural Experiment in China," NBER Working Papers 26148, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1nfkh9tn2m87ko6gb634e2ufgl is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3l4arseauo82kr3cm0qr8uihmg is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Gibbons, Stephen & Overman, Henry & Sarvimäki, Matti, 2021. "The local economic impacts of regeneration projects: Evidence from UK's single regeneration budget," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    16. Nivala, Annika, 2024. "(No) Effects of Subsidizing the First Employee: Evidence of a Low Take-up Puzzle Among Firms," Working Papers 166, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Manon Garrouste & Miren Lafourcade, 2022. "Place-Based Policies: Opportunity for Deprived Schools or Zone-and-Shame Effect?," Post-Print hal-04329793, HAL.
    18. Patrick Kline & Enrico Moretti, 2014. "People, Places, and Public Policy: Some Simple Welfare Economics of Local Economic Development Programs," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 629-662, August.
    19. David Neumark, 2020. "Place‐Based Policies: Can We Do Better Than Enterprise Zones?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 836-844, June.
    20. Emeline Bezin & Thierry Verdier & Yves Zenou, 2022. "Crime, Broken Families, and Punishment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 723-760, November.
    21. FUJISHIMA Shota & HOSHINO Tadao & SUGAWARA Shinya, 2020. "Heterogeneous Treatment Effects of Place-based Policies: Which Cities Should be Targeted?," Discussion papers 20036, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    22. Florian MAYNERIS & Loriane PY, 2013. "The Efficiency Of Enterprise Zone Programs Some Conflicting Results?," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 38, pages 209-224.
    23. Moretti, Enrico & Wilson, Daniel J., 2014. "State incentives for innovation, star scientists and jobs: Evidence from biotech," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 20-38.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wage subsidies; hiring credits; part-time work; employer behavior; policy analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy

    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:sae:ilrrev:v:76:y:2023:i:1:p:189-209. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.