Bruce D. Meyer, PhD

McCormick Foundation Professor, Harris School

Bruce Meyer, the McCormick Foundation Professor in the Harris School, studies poverty and inequality, tax policy, welfare policy, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, minority entrepreneurship, the health care safety net, and labor supply. His most recent work includes research on the effects of welfare and tax reform on the well-being of single mothers, models and methods to analyze labor supply, changes in poverty and inequality, the effects of disability, and the effects of changes in the health care safety net.

Meyer received his BA and MA in economics from Northwestern University and his PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Meyer was a faculty member in the Economics Department at Northwestern University from 1987 through 2004. He has also been a visiting faculty member at University College London and Princeton University, a member of the Institute for Research on Poverty, a faculty research fellow and research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. He is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. Meyer has also served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, Human Resources Development Canada, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, and Mathematica Policy Research.

Selected Working Papers

Selected Published Papers

  • "The Effects of the EITC and Recent Reforms," in Tax Policy and the Economy 24, edited by Jeffrey Brown, M.I.T. Press, 2010, 153-180. (Paper)
  • "Changes in the Consumption, Income, and Well-Being of Single Mother Headed Families," (with James X. Sullivan) American Economic Review 98(5) December 2008, 2221-41.
  • "A Note on 'The Longitudinal Structure of Earnings Losses among Work-Limited Disabled Workers'" (with Wallace K. C. Mok, Kerwin Kofi Charles, and Alexandra C. Achen). Journal of Human Resources 43(3): Summer 2008, 721-728. (Paper)
  • "The U.S. Earned Income Tax Credit: Its Effects and Possible Reforms," Swedish Economic Policy Review 14(2) Fall 2007, 55-80. (View Working Paper)
  • "Unemployment Insurance Tax Burdens and Benefits: Funding Family Leave and Reforming the Payroll Tax" (with Patricia M. Anderson), National Tax Journal 59 (March 2006), 77-95. (Paper available from EBSCOHOST through the University of Chicago Libraries)
  • "The Effects of Welfare and Tax Reform: The Material Well-Being of Single Mothers in the 1980s and 1990s" (with James X. Sullivan), Journal of Public Economics 88, 2004, 1387-1420. (Paper available through Elsevier - ScienceDirect.com)
  • "Work Costs and Nonconvex Preferences in the Estimation of Labor Supply Models" (with Bradley T. Heim), Journal of Public Economics 88, 2004, 2323-2338. (Paper available through Elsevier - ScienceDirect.com)
  • "Measuring the Well-Being of the Poor Using Income and Consumption" (with James X. Sullivan), Journal of Human Resources 38 Supplement, 2003, 1180-1220. (Paper)
  • "Labor Supply at the Extensive and Intensive Margins: The EITC, Welfare and Hours Worked" American Economic Review, 92, May 2002, 373-379. (Paper available through JSTOR - www.jstor.org)
  • "Welfare, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers" (with Dan T. Rosenbaum), Quarterly Journal of Economics CXVI, August 2001, 1063-1114. (Paper)
  • "The Effects of the Unemployment Insurance Payroll Tax on Wages, Employment, Claims and Denials," (with Patricia M. Anderson), Journal of Public Economics 78, October 2000, 81-106. (Paper available through Elsevier - ScienceDirect.com)
  • "Unemployment Insurance Takeup Rates and the After-Tax Value of Benefits," (with Patricia M. Anderson), Quarterly Journal of Economics, CXII, August 1997, 913-938. (Paper available through JSTOR - www.jstor.org)
  • "Workers' Compensation and Injury Duration: Evidence from a Natural Experiment" (with W. Kip Viscusi and David Durbin) American Economic Review,, 85, June 1995, 322-340. (Paper available through JSTOR - www.jstor.org)
  • "Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Spells" Econometrica, 58, July 1990, 757-782. (Paper available through JSTOR - www.jstor.org)

Media and Testimony

  • "Government Surveys Underreport Benefits," (WBEZ, Eight Forty-Eight, April 23, 2009). Bruce Meyer discusses underreporting of government benefits.
  • "Counting Stimulus Jobs Is No Easy Task," (National Public Radio, March 27, 2009). Bruce Meyer comments on the difficulty of counting jobs saved or created by the federal stimulus package.
  • "Measuring American Poverty" (PDF), Statement of Bruce D. Meyer, Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support of the House Committee on Ways and Means, July 17, 2008.

Books

Courses

Bruce Meyer

Contact Information
1155 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
Suite 166
E-mail: bdmeyer@uchicago.edu
Phone: 773-702-2712


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