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David Lee
My research focuses on dimensions of inequality in the United States. For example, in a series of papers I look at the contribution that the falling value of the minimum wage has made to wage inequality, the role of observed and unobserved skills in fueling black/white wage differentials, and the impact of the Job Corps program, one of the largest federally-funded job training programs in the United States which aims at improving the labor market outcomes of economically disadvantaged youth. Health economics is another field in which I have interests that connect to questions of inequality. In this domain I have examined questions like the role of low birth weight in generating inequality in later life outcomes and find that the impact is less than many researchers have suggested. More broadly, my research looks at how economic agents respond to laws, institutional rules and policy regimes that have the potential to affect the distribution of resources and ask how these rules can be used to learn about economic behavior. Visit WebsitePublications “Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984-2001,” by David Lee with John DiNardo, in Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(4), 1383-1441. Economic impacts of unionization on employers are difficult to estimate in the absence of large, representative data on establishments with union status information. Estimates are also confounded by selection bias, because unions could organize at highly profitable enterprises that are more likely to grow and pay higher wages. This paper estimates the impact of unionization on business survival, employment, output, productivity, and wages. The evidence suggests that-at least in recent decades-the legal mandate that requires the employer to bargain with a certified union has had little economic impact on employers, because unions have been somewhat unsuccessful at securing significant wage gains. 
“Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U.S. House,” by David Lee with Enrico Moretti and Matthew J. Butler, in Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(3), 807-859. There are two fundamentally different views of the role of elections in policy formation. In one view, voters can affect candidates' policy choices: competition for votes induces politicians to move toward the center and create conditions conducive to policy compromise. Alternatively, voters merely elect policies: politicians cannot make credible promises to moderate their policies, and elections are merely a means to decide which one of two opposing policy views will be implemented. Focusing on elections decided by a narrow margin for the House of Representatives, we generate quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of a "randomized" change in electoral strength on subsequent representatives' roll-call voting records. We find that voters merely elect policies: the degree of electoral strength has no effect on a legislator's voting behavior. |
