Joyce Manchester

Trends in Employment and Earnings of Allowed and Rejected Applicants to the Social Security Disability Insurance Program

Longitudinal administrative data show that rejected male applicants to the Disability Insurance (DI) program who are younger or have low-mortality impairments such as back pain and mental health problems exhibit substantial labor force attachment. While we confirm that employment rates of older rejected applicants are low, continued high numbers of younger and low-mortality beneficiaries have raised the potential employment of DI beneficiaries. Three findings support economic inducement to apply. Mean preapplication earnings have fallen, rejected applicants experience preapplication declines in earnings, and beneficiaries whose first applications were rejected at the DDS level but who ultimately received benefits exhibit substantial employment. (JEL: H55, J14, J28, J31)

The global macroeconomics of NAFTA

Previous empirical studies of NAFTA have commonly used trade models that do not allow international capital flows to adjust to changes in regional trade arrangements such as NAFTA. This paper explores the dynamic implications of NAFTA with particular focus on the short-run and longer-run adjustment of financial capital. This adjustment affects the global allocation of physical capital and therefore changes the growth prospects for a country such as Mexico. Our results suggest that Mexico and the world economy gain more from NAFTA than merely a static reallocation of production possibilities. In the short run, the adjustment of financial capital affects nominal and real exchange rates. This adjustment is far more important for the short-term allocation of trade flows than partial equilibrium adjustment of trade based only on changes in long-term price differentials.

The Macroeconomic Consequences of the Savings and Loan Debacle

This paper used a general equilibrium framework to examine the macroeconomic consequences of the recent failures and subsequent bailout in the savings and loan industry. We distinguish between the losses in the capital stock, the economic effects of alternative methods of funding those real losses, and the intertemporal transfer of real resources implicit in backing the financial assets used. We then embed the analysis in a general equilibrium, multi-country model with intertemporal budget constraints that allows for the interaction of intertemporal adjustment and expectation revisions. The more complete model is used to explore the consequences of the S&L debacle on the evolution of the U.S. economy during the 1980s and 1990s. Copyright 1994 by MIT Press.

The Employment Effects of Social Security Disability Insurance in the Past 25 Years

We use administrative longitudinal data on earnings, impairment, and mortality to replicate and extend Bound’s seminal study of rejected applicants to federal Disability Insurance (DI). We confirm Bound’s main result that rejected older male applicants do not exhibit substantial labor force participation. We show this result is stable over time, robust to more narrow control groups, and similar within gender, impairment, industry, and earnings groups. However, we also find that younger rejected applicants have substantial employment after application. To what extent this translates into potential employment for new beneficiaries depends on which group among them is considered “on the margin” of receiving DI. If we use initially rejected applicants – a large and growing fraction of new beneficiaries – the resulting counterfactual employment rate for younger applicants is low, too. We also find that rejected applicants bear signs of economically induced applicants. DI appears to induce a growing number of less successful workers to apply, an important fraction of which ends up without benefits and non-employed. 1 This research was supported by the U.S. Social Security Administration through grant #10-P-98363-1-05 to the National Bureau of Economic Research as part of the SSA Retirement Research Consortium. The findings and conclusions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent the views of SSA, any agency of the Federal Government, or the NBER.

Long-Term Earnings Losses Due to Job Separation During the 1982 Recession

We present new estimates of the long-run earnings consequences of job separations that occurred during the 1982 recession based on a representative sample of workers drawn from Social Security administrative earnings data ranging from 1974 to 2005. Workers permanently leaving their long-term employer in the period from 1980 to 1985 experienced large and persistent earnings reductions lasting 15 to 20 years compared to workers of similar age and earnings potential who did not leave their employer. Earnings losses last up to 15 years even for workers displaced in better economic times or after shorter job tenure. These losses arise both due to reductions in employment as well as to reductions in annual earnings for those working. These preliminary estimates appear to confirm results from single U.S. states or limited time periods suggesting that job loss can be very costly for affected workers.