arXiv subjects

Pauline Leung

Publications and source records attributed to Pauline Leung.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Screening Out the Needy: The Effects of SNAP Work Requirements

We examine the effectiveness of work requirements as a screening device in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Work requirements for "able-bodied adults without dependents" were suspended after the Great Recession and gradually reinstated across counties and states in the 2010s. Using linked administrative SNAP and employment data from five states and a triple-differences design, we find that work requirements reduce SNAP participation by seven percent without increasing labor supply and disproportionately screen out low-income individuals. We develop a welfare framework to interpret these results and find that the social costs of work requirements exceed budget savings.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2025

Further Education During Unemployment

Evidence on the effectiveness of retraining U.S. unemployed workers primarily comes from evaluations of training programs, which represent one narrow avenue for skill acquisition. We use high-quality records from Ohio and a matching method to estimate the effects of retraining, broadly defined as enrollment in postsecondary institutions. Our simple method bridges two strands of the dynamic treatment effect literature that estimate the treatment-now-versus-later and treatment-versus-no-treatment effects. We find that enrollees experience earnings gains of six percent three to four years after enrolling, after depressed earnings during the first two years. The earnings effects are driven by industry-switchers, particularly to healthcare.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2024

Supercompliers

In a binary-treatment instrumental variable framework, we define supercompliers as the subpopulation whose treatment take-up positively responds to eligibility and whose outcome positively responds to take-up. Supercompliers are the only subpopulation to benefit from treatment eligibility and, hence, are important for policy. We provide tools to characterize supercompliers under a set of jointly testable assumptions. Specifically, we require standard assumptions from the local average treatment effect literature plus an outcome monotonicity assumption. Estimation and inference can be conducted with instrumental variable regression. In two job-training experiments, we demonstrate our machinery's utility, particularly in incorporating social welfare weights into marginal-value-of-public-funds analysis.

econ.EM↗