US Labor Market

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Featured Research

Articles

Research: The Growing Inequality Of Who Gets To Work From Home

December 19, 2023 By Steven J. Davis , Nicholas Bloom , Peter John Lambert , Stephen Hansen , Yabra Muvdi , Raffaella Sadun , Bledi Taska

via Harvard Business Review

Working Papers

The Evolution of Work from Home

September 3, 2023 By Steven J. Davis , Jose Maria Barrero , Nicholas Bloom

via Economics Working Papers

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Articles

Overconfidence And Preferences For Competition

We study when preferences for competition are a positive economic trait among high earners and the extent to which this trait can explain the gender gap in income among a master's degree in…

February 13, 2024 By Paola Sapienza , Ernesto Reuben , Luigi Zingales

via The Journal of Finance

Articles

Defense Budgeting: Recruits Deserve A Better Deal

December 13, 2023 By Timothy Kane

via Defining Ideas

Event

The Implications Of Remote Work

September 27, 2023

Working Papers

Working From Home Around The Globe: 2023 Report

September 6, 2023 By Steven J. Davis , Cevat Giray Aksoy , Jose Maria Barrero , Nicholas Bloom , Mathias Dolls , Pablo Zarate

via Work From Home Research

Fellows in this Policy Area

John F. Cogan

Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow

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John F. Cogan

Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow

John F. Cogan is the Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His research is focused on US budget and fiscal policy and federal entitlement programs. He has published widely in professional journals in both economics and political science. His latest book, The High Cost of Good Intentions (2017) is the recipient of the 2018 Hayek Prize. The book traces the history of US federal entitlement programs from the Revolutionary War to modern times. His previous books include Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System (2005), coauthored with Glenn Hubbard and Daniel P. Kessler, and The Budget Puzzle (1994), with Timothy J. Muris and Allen Schick. At Stanford, he taught classes in the Economics Department, the Graduate School of Business, and the Public Policy Program, where he was a faculty member from 1994 to 2019. He also served on faculty advisory boards for the Stanford in Washington Program and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is a recipient of the Stanford-in-Government's Distinguished Service Award and the Stanford Review’s Best Undergraduate Teaching Award. Cogan has devoted a considerable part of his career to public service. He served under President Ronald Reagan as assistant secretary for policy in the US Department of Labor from 1981 to 1983, and in the US Office of Management and Budget, as associate director from 1983 to 1985 and as deputy director from 1988 to 1989. He was appointed to numerous congressional, presidential, and California state advisory commissions. He was a member of President George W. Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, the US Bipartisan Commission on Health Care (the Pepper Commission), the Social Security Notch Commission, and the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance. He was also a member of the California State Commission on the 21st-Century Economy and the California Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission. Cogan served on the board of directors of Monaco Coach Corporation from 2006 to 2009; the board of directors of Gilead Sciences from 2006 to 2020 (lead independent director, 2013–2020); and on the board of trustees of the Charles Schwab Family of Funds from 2009 to 2021 (chairman, Governance Committee 2014–2020). Cogan received his AB in 1969 and his PhD in 1976 from the University of California–Los Angeles, both in economics. He received his MA in economics from California State University–Long Beach in 1970. He was an associate economist at the RAND Corporation from 1975 to 1980. In 1979, Cogan was appointed a national fellow at the Hoover Institution; in 1980 he was appointed a senior research fellow; and in 1984 he became a senior fellow.

Thomas E. MaCurdy

Senior Fellow

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Thomas E. MaCurdy

Senior Fellow

Thomas MaCurdy holds a joint appointment as a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Professor of Economics at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1978. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. MaCurdy’s expertise covers domestic policy related to government income-support and entitlement programs, with his research disclosing consequential empirical findings relevant to the design and impacts of public assistance policies. MaCurdy has published numerous articles and reports in professional journals and general-interest public policy venues, with studies analyzing policies in the areas of welfare, food stamps, earned income tax credit, minimum wages, unemployment compensation, child support, foster care, low-skilled training, federal and state taxes, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government aid for health care. These studies address a broad range issues, including determinants of participation rates, characteristics of beneficiaries, sources and distributions of program costs, and influences on work disincentives and incomes. In the healthcare area, MaCurdy has conducted a wide variety of projects supporting the activities and operations of the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO). He works extensively on the design of payment policies. He directs major projects with CMS on the setting of Medicare payment rates in the fee-for-service (FFS), Medicare Advantage (managed care) and Part D (drugs) programs. He also currently supervises several projects supporting CMS regulatory policy responsible for the establishment and maintenance of Healthcare Exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. He has further conducted a series of studies that explore options for implementing Value Base Purchasing (VBP) in Medicare (which introduces pay-for-performance features in reimbursements) and that examine the cost drivers underlying the growth in healthcare spending. MaCurdy has performed similar work in Medicaid for a variety of government agencies, studying both the impact of payment policy and the circumstances explaining cost growth. Among his public service activities, MaCurdy has served as a member of standing committees advising the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census, Congressional Budget Office, Institute for Research on Poverty, West Coast Poverty Center, California Health Benefits Review Program and many other state and local governmental agencies in California. He has further served in an editorial capacity for several professional journals (Econometrica, Labor Economics, Journal of Econometrics, Review of Economics and Statistics and California Policy Review). MaCurdy received his BA in 1973 from the University of Washington and his PhD in 1978 from the University of Chicago, both in economics.

Daniel P. Kessler

Keith and Jan Hurlbut Senior Fellow | Director of Research

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Daniel P. Kessler

Keith and Jan Hurlbut Senior Fellow | Director of Research

Daniel Kessler is the Keith and Jan Hurlbut Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Hoover Institution and a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on economics, public policy, and the health care industry. He is also a professor at the Stanford Law School. Among his publications are, with Mark McClellan, “The Effect of Hospital Ownership on Medical Productivity,” in the RAND Journal of Economics (2002), and “Designing Hospital Antitrust Policy to Promote Social Welfare,” which appeared in Frontiers in Health Policy Research. His books include a forthcoming second edition of Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System (Hoover Institution Press, 2011), coauthored with Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow John Cogan and R. Glenn Hubbard, and Regulation versus Litigation: Perspectives from Economics and Law (University of Chicago Press, 2010). He is the holder of a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Steven J. Davis

Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow

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Steven J. Davis

Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow

Steven Davis is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Senior Fellow at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and William H. Abbott Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of International Business and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, economic adviser to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, senior adviser to the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, and senior academic fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). He also serves on the ABFER executive committee. Davis is co-founder of the Economic Policy Uncertainty project, the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, the Survey of Business Uncertainty, and the Stock Market Jumps project. He co-organizes the Asian Monetary Policy Forum, held annually in Singapore. Awards and Honors: Addington Prize in Measurement (2012) Society of Labor Economics, Elected Fellow (2015)

Joshua D. Rauh

Senior Fellow

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Joshua D. Rauh

Senior Fellow

Joshua Rauh is the Ormond Family Professor of Finance at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He leads the Hoover Institution State and Local Government Initiative. He formerly served at the White House where he was principal chief economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (2019-20), and taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (2004–9) and the Kellogg School of Management (2009–12). At the Hoover Institution he has served as Director of Research (2018-19). Rauh studies government pension liabilities, corporate investment, business taxation, and investment management. His research on pension systems and public finance has received national media coverage in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and The Economist, and he has testified before Congress on these topics. His PragerU video “Public Pensions: An Economic Time Bomb” has been viewed over four million times on the PragerU website and over three million times on YouTube. He has published numerous journal articles and has received various awards recognizing his scholarship including the Brattle Prize and the Smith Breeden Prize of the American Finance Association. His scholarly papers have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Public Economics. Prior to his academic career, he was an associate economist at Goldman Sachs in London. Rauh received a BA from Yale University and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in economics.

Robert E. Hall

Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow

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Robert E. Hall

Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow

Robert E. Hall holds a joint position endowed by Robert and Carole McNeil as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor in the economics department, Stanford University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society and the Society of Labor Economists. Hall is an applied economist with interests in technology, competition, employment issues, and economic policy. He is a frequent contributor to discussions of national economic policy, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, and competition policy. Hall's research focuses on levels of activity and stock market valuations in market economies and on the economics of high technology, particularly the Internet. His most recent book, Digital Dealing: How e-Markets Are Transforming the Economy, was published by W. W. Norton in 2001. Along with Hoover colleague Alvin Rabushka, Hall is an active proponent of the flat tax. Their article in the Wall Street Journal in December 1981 was the starting point of an upsurge of interest in the flat tax. This led to their book, The Flat Tax (Hoover Institution Press, 1985 and 1995). The pair was recognized in Money magazine's Money Hall of Fame for their contributions to financial innovation over the past twenty years. Hall is coauthor, with Marc Lieberman, of Economics: Principles and Applications, 3rd edition (South-Western, 2004). Hall also serves as director of the research program on economic fluctuations and growth of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an interuniversity research organization. He is chairman of the bureau's Committee on Business Cycle Dating, which maintains the semiofficial chronology of the U.S. business cycle. Hall has advised a number of government agencies on national economic policy, including the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve Board. He served on President-elect Ronald Reagan's Task Force on Inflation Policy and was a member of the National Presidential Advisory Committee on Productivity. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees concerning national economic policy. He presented the Ely Lecture to the American Economic Association in 2001. Before coming to Stanford, Hall was a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Born in Palo Alto, California, he attended school in Palo Alto and Los Angeles, received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hall is married to economist Susan Woodward and lives in Menlo Park, California.