The Impact of Sustained Unconditional Cash Transfers on Labor Market Outcomes

本研究项目将使用大量的数据集和实验方法来调查无条件现金转移对劳动力市场结果的中长期影响，如时间使用、求职、动机和工人的讨价还价能力。世界各地的政策制定者越来越多地使用无条件现金转移作为促进经济流动性和减贫的机制。然而，这些项目的长期影响，包括转让结束后会发生什么，仍然没有得到充分的研究。了解无条件现金转移如何影响时间使用、求职、动机和工人的讨价还价能力，对于预测现金转移的长期影响，确定现金转移的整体影响，并使用估计值来制定劳动力市场政策是必要的。这项研究的一个独特之处是结合了大量数据集和创新的研究设计，使研究人员能够回答许多以前没有回答过的问题。因此，本研究对经济科学做出了重要贡献。这一研究项目的结果将为劳动力市场和减贫政策提供重要的投入，并确立美国在这些领域的全球领先地位。该项目利用现有的私人资助的无条件现金转移的随机对照试验，更频繁地收集额外的数据，并使用现场实验来研究现金转移如何影响：(I)工作质量；(Ii)时间使用；(Iii)对长期劳动力市场结果的投入；(Iv)现金转移结束时的劳动力市场结果。这项研究将无条件现金转移的实验变量与工作搜索、工作满意度、时间使用、人力资本积累和与雇主谈判的独特数据以及工资、福利和就业的标准数据结合起来，得出因果关系。PI拥有参与者的详细数据，这些数据来自行政记录、调查数据、被动收集的手机数据，涵盖了一系列变量，从而允许在工人面临其他选择的背景下细致入微地理解劳动力供应决定。通过收集现有研究中无法观察到的个体特征、结果和行为的高频数据，实验分配治疗，并仔细考虑不同的自然减损，这项研究将对无条件现金转移的文献做出重要贡献。该研究项目的结果将为劳动力市场和减贫政策提供重要的投入，并使美国成为这些领域的全球领导者。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research project will use a large data set and experimental methods to investigate the medium and long-term effects of unconditional cash transfers on labor market outcomes such as time use, job search, motivation, and worker bargaining power. Policymakers across the globe increasingly use unconditional cash transfers as mechanisms for promoting economic mobility and poverty reduction. However, the long-term impacts of these programs, including what happens when transfers end, remain insufficiently studied. Understanding how unconditional cash transfers impact time use, job search, motivation, and worker bargaining power is necessary for projecting the long-run impacts of cash transfers, determining the overall effects of cash transfers, and using the estimates to formulate labor market policies. A unique aspect of this study is the combination of a large data set and an innovative research design that allows the researchers to answer many questions that have not been answered before. This research therefore makes important contribution to economic science. The results of this research project will provide important inputs into labor market and poverty reduction policies as well as establish the US as the global leader in these areas. This project leverages an existing privately funded randomized control trial on unconditional cash transfers, collect additional data at more frequent intervals and also use field experiments to study how cash transfers affect: (i) job quality; (ii) time use; (iii) inputs to long-run labor market outcomes; (iv) labor market outcomes when cash transfers end. This study combines experimental variation in unconditional cash transfers with unique data on job search, job satisfaction, time use, human capital accumulation, and negotiation with employers and standard data on wages, benefits, and employment to draw causality. The PIs have detailed data about participants from administrative records, survey data, passively collected mobile phone data covering a wide array of variables, thus allowing for a nuanced understanding of labor supply decisions in the context of other choices workers face. By collecting high frequency data on individual characteristics, outcomes, and behaviors that have been unobservable in existing studies, experimentally assigning treatment, and carefully accounting for differential attrition, this study will make important contributions to the literature on unconditional cash transfers. The results of this research project will provide important inputs into labor market and poverty reduction policies as well as establish the US as the global leader in these areas.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.