This article develops a framework for analyzing the impact of taxes and transfers on the length of time a person waits to accept a job while receiving transfer payments. It considers the impact of changes in the parameters of a generic tax-transfer system characterized by a guarantee and a tax rate on the costs and benefits of search. The analytical results indicate that increases in guarantees need not increase duration of unemployment-the results for unemployment insurance are a special case of the more general formulation developed in this article. In fact, increases in guarantees and increases in tax rates may shorten the duration of unemployment while decreasing the labor supply of transfer recipients.

This article explores the claim that college‐educated workers are increasingly likely to be in “noncollege” occupations. We provide a conceptual framework that gives analytical content to the previously vague distinction between “college” and noncollege jobs. We show that, when there is heterogeneity in preferences, equally productive college workers can be in college and noncollege jobs. This framework is also used to show that skill‐biased technological change will lead to a decline in the proportion of college workers in noncollege jobs. This prediction is supported by the data.

This article develops analytic links between cohort composition and human capital accumulation across generations. By focusing on cohort composition rather than cohort size, it offers new links between demographic change and economic outcomes. The model shows that changes in the educational attainment of parents and changes in relative fertility rates between educational classes affect human capital accumulation of the next generation. The main prediction of the model, of a negative behavioral feedback, is shown to be consistent with data on the probability of attending college for men born between 1927 and 1962.

This article provides evidence on changes in short‐term job instability and insecurity using the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Monthly measures from this data set are contrasted with annual measures from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Neither data set shows an increase in job turnover during the 1980s and 1990s. We also examine indicators of increased insecurity. These include the probability that a job ends involuntarily, is followed by a spell of nonemployment, or that the subsequent job has lower wages. These indicators of insecurity also show no upward trend.

We develop a search model that focuses on the expected result of search. The model focuses on four conceptually different steps which are taken in changing jobs. First, the person is either voluntarily or involuntarily terminated. Second, the person who decides to quit (or who is involuntarily terminated with prior notification) chooses whether to search on the job or full time (i.e., by becoming unemployed). Third, as each job offer is received, the person decides either to accept it or to continue searching for a better offer. The fourth step occurs after the person has evaluated the "experience-good" aspects of the job. At that point he or she can determine whether the new job is better than the previous job. The question we ask is whether the type of termination and/or the experience of unemployment affects the probability that the person will find the new job preferable to the previous job. The model predicts that the type of termination will affect the probability of moving to a better job but the experience of unemployment will not. This prediction is verified using 1978-79 data from the PSID to estimate a bivariate probit model.

This paper examines the driving forces of family income dynamics by developing a unified framework to estimate permanent and transitory variation in head earnings, spouse earnings, and transfer income, as well as permanent and transitory correlations between these income sources. A complete decomposition using the PSID 1970–2018 shows that transitory variation in head earnings alone accounts for more than half of the total family income inequality. Insurance against transitory shocks to head earnings comes primarily from transfer income rather than spouse earnings. Both permanent and transitory variations in spouse earnings have an equalizing effect on family income inequality.