Marta Lachowska
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Economist Marta Lachowska's areas of interest include labor economics, public economics, and applied microeconomics. She is currently conducting research on the Kalamazoo Promise and the long-run outcomes of the Washington Alternative Work Search experiment. Additionally, Lachowska is researching how the economic crisis of 2007–2008 has influenced various aspects of behavior of U.S. households. Brief Bio Full CV |
Research Focus: The Short-Term Effects of the Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship on Student Outcomes (with Timothy J. Bartik)
In order to study whether college scholarships can be an effective tool in raising students’ performance, we use one aspect of the Kalamazoo Promise that bears resemblance to a “quasi-experiment.” The surprise announcement of the scholarship created a large change in expected college tuition costs that varied across different groups of students based on past enrollment decisions. We estimate the effect of this announcement by a difference-in-difference regression where we compare the change in student outcomes across time for different student “length of enrollment” groups.
Research Focus: Reexamining the Washington Alternative Work Search Experiment (with Merve Cebi and Stephen A. Woodbury)
We estimate the long-run effects of the Washington Alternative Work Search (WAWS) experiment. Using quarterly administrative data, we follow UI claimants’ employment and earnings over the ten years following the experiment. Previous studies of the WAWS have focused on estimating the intention-to-treat effects. We extend the analysis by examining the short- and long-term outcomes of the participants of the experiment.
Research Focus: The Effects of the 2008 Tax Rebates
In 2008, in an attempt to stimulate the weakening economy, the administration proposed an economic stimulus package. As a part of this package, tax rebates targeting low- and middle-income families were implemented as a means for increasing the spending of U.S. households. The set-up of the tax rebate program adopted a feature very attractive for policy evaluation. The timing of the disbursement of the tax rebate checks was determined by the last two digits of the taxpayer’s Social Security number, making the timing of check receipt as good as randomized among eligible households. Most papers studying the effects of the tax rebates consider the exogenous variation in tax rebate receipt to test the predictions of the life-cycle model. The tax rebate, however, also lends itself to analysis of the effects of income on the other outcomes of interest, such as well-being, time-use patterns, consumer confidence, and health insurance coverage. Thanks to the essentially random timing of tax rebate receipt, changes in behavior can be attributed due to the causal effect of the rebate. Using unique daily data, I study the effects of the rebate on various outcomes.