This paper develops a novel sufficient statistics approach to identify the insurance value of disability insurance (DI) benefits. Our approach estimates the insurance value from the relative DI take-up responses to more generous DI benefits and the take-up responses to wage reductions. Empirically, we find that increasing Canadian DI benefits by $1 creates a societal benefit of $1.9 (insurance value). At the same time, we estimate that a $1 increase in DI benefits costs society $1.5. We thus find that the improved insurance outweighs the additional costs of higher benefits in the Canadian context.

Despite young adults facing disproportionate poverty, barriers to implementing targeted transfer programs persist due to policymakers' concerns. This paper introduces a framework comparing the welfare effects of increasing government transfers to young versus older individuals. It accounts for age-dependent behavioral responses, including educational and labor decisions, and interactions with parental transfers. Leveraging bank data, I find the social marginal utility of transfers to young adults is 2 to 4 times larger than to older individuals. Accounting for fiscal costs, increasing transfers to young adults yields welfare gains 6 times higher for students from low-income families and 2 times higher for young workers compared to older individuals. These findings suggest redistributing resources from older to younger individuals would be highly welfare-enhancing.

Since 2005 unemployed workers in Finland with sufficient work history have had an option to enrol in a specific program aimed at encouraging labour market training participation and improving matches between the training programs and unemployed job seekers. The program participants meet a caseworker at the beginning of their unemployment spell and draft an individual-specific employment plan. In return, they are entitled to higher unemployment benefits for four weeks and to higher compensation whenever they participate in the labour market training programs specified in the employment plan. We evaluate the impact of this program on unemployment duration by comparing eligible and ineligible worker groups before and after the reform, using a difference-in-differences approach. We find a small reduction in the average unemployment duration for the program participants.The program increased labour market training participation in some groups, but did not improve their effectiveness.

This paper investigates how emigration of rural laborers affects public spending on rural schools in the origin regions in China. We build a theoretical model of local government decision-making on education spending facing both traditional and fiscal externalities. The model predicts that per student spending on public schools in origin regions decreases with emigration rate, which is stronger when more children are left-behind. We confirm these hypotheses using both OLS and IV estimators. Results are robust to alternative measures of emigration rate and education spending and different sample restrictions. We rule out alternative hypotheses likely consistent with the empirical findings.