Information about all Policy Impacts events can be found below.

Events

### UPDATE: We are delighted to announce the first winners of the Early-Career Scholars Grant -- see announcement [here](https://cdn.policyimpacts.org/cms/grant_winners_2021_efd312d409.pdf).

## Overview

Policy Impacts seeks to provide grants to researchers conducting causal analyses of government policy changes and who are seeking to translate those estimates into their implied welfare impact using the MVPF framework. Grantees may receive up to $20K of financial support (up to $10K for graduate student applicants) and will also receive any desired technical assistance and mentorship to help construct the MVPF of their policy of interest. 

Research from accepted proposals will be presented at the Policy Impacts annual conference in Summer 2022 and included in the Policy Impacts Library. The conference will bring together all grantees to present their empirical analyses and discuss issues arising from translating those estimates into their MVPF. All travel expenses for the conference will be covered by Policy Impacts. 

## Application Guidelines
The purpose of these grants is to help support researchers with credible empirical designs push to the frontier of empirical welfare estimation using the MVPF framework. To that aim, successful applicants should establish that they have a valid research design and have the ability to measure the causal effect of a policy on welfare-relevant outcomes (e.g. earnings, criminal justice outcomes, health, etc). Applications should also discuss a potential pathway to measuring the MVPF of the policy in question.

Applicants should submit a concise single-spaced proposal describing the proposed work that should be no more than 10 pages total, with no more than 5 pages single spaced description of the analysis, 4 pages of figures/tables, and 1 page description of the budget and how the money will be used. Acceptable funding uses include but are not limited to funding researcher time, research assistant time, and data acquisition. 

## Eligibility
Early career scholars (untenured) and graduate students are eligible to apply (awards for graduate students are limited to $10K plus travel funding for the 2022 conference). Projects may be collaborations with senior faculty, but funding will be limited to untenured faculty members within the collaboration. 

We encourage applications for all untenured researchers. We especially welcome applications from researchers at institutions with more limited research funding opportunities and from groups traditionally under-represented in economics.

## Submission Deadlines
[Please submit application materials here](https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5mYF17vG5PtfKcK). 

Complete applications must be submitted by **August 31, 2021**. 

Decisions will be announced by **October 31, 2021.** 

## Note on Indirect Costs
For applicants whose organizations will seek recovery of indirect cost from our grants, the maximum rate charged should be 10%.  These rates also apply to any sub-grantees that may be part of the primary applicant organization’s proposal. If the applicant’s organization has a rate that is lower than the maximum amount we allow, then the applicant’s organization should not increase their rate and should use their standard rate for non-federal awards (if lower than 10%).
 
Applicants who believe that they are unable to comply with this policy should reach out to info@policyimpacts.org to discuss possible alternative arrangements, as we will strive to ensure this policy does not prevent applications. 



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Policy Impacts seeks proposals from early-career scholars who are currently conducting well-identified analyses of government policy changes and who are seeking to translate those estimates into their implied welfare impacts. 


Application Deadline: Early-Career Scholars Grant

### View the conference recording [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxDNWgorD9E)

Our inaugural conference brought together economists conducting research at the frontier of applied microeconomics and who are also translating the causal effects of the policy's they study into their implied MVPFs. 

## Conference schedule: 

### 1:00 - 1:05     Welcome

### 1:05 - 1:40     Elisa Jácome > [Mental Health and Criminal Involvement: Evidence from Losing Medicaid Eligibility](https://elisajacome.github.io/Jacome/Jacome_JMP.pdf)

### 1:45 - 2:20 Amy Finkelstein – [What Does Health Insurance Do, And For Whom?](https://economics.mit.edu/files/15244)

### 2:25 - 3:00 Lawrence Katz -  [Why Do Sectoral Employment Programs Work? Lessons from WorkAdvance](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/lkatz/files/krhs_sectoral_jole_submit.pdf)

### 3:05 - 3:40 Christopher Walters – [Augmenting State Capacity for Child Development: Experimental Evidence from India](https://eml.berkeley.edu/~crwalters/papers/TN_ECE.pdf)

### 3:45 - 4:20 Hilary Hoynes – [Is the Social Safety Net a Long-Term Investment? Large-Scale Evidence from the Food Stamps Program](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ecd75a3c406d1318b20454d/t/5f4553f1a0281c00155f2b3c/1598378995298/w26942.pdf)

### 4:25 - 5:00 Joshua Angrist – [The Marginal Effects of Merit Aid for Low-Income Students](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pallais/files/financial_aid.pdf)

### 5:05 - 5:15 Brief discussion of Policy Impacts Early-Career Research Scholars Grant Program
 


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Policy Impacts held its inaugural conference on August 12 at 1pm EDT. (Link to Recording Below)

Policy Impacts Inaugural Conference

The pre-doctoral fellow will work directly with Professor Hendren on research topics in applied micro-economics and empirical welfare analysis. Topics likely include the welfare analysis of environmental policies and criminal justice policies, empirical macroeconomics, and the impact and incidence of labor market shocks. Work will involve detailed and careful coding of the welfare impacts of government policies, analysis and coding of large microdatasets, literature reviews, and advanced meta-analysis methods using Stata and GitHub. It will also build upon earlier work studying the welfare impacts of government policies and the impact of local labor markets on upward economic mobility. 

[Click here to view posting and apply](https://careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/client_mit/external/jobDetails/jobDetail.html?jobPostId=25777&localeCode=en-us)

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Nathaniel Hendren is hiring 2-3 Pre-Doctoral Fellows to work closely with him at Policy Impacts starting next summer at MIT. Apply by Nov 6 for full consideration.

Now Hiring: Pre-Doctoral Fellows

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Policy Impacts is organizing the second annual conference that will be 
hosted at Harvard University on August 25. The conference will bring 
together researchers conducting analysis of the impact of government 
policies and translating those impacts into a welfare analysis of those 
policies using the MVPF framework. We are planning for a day-
long event that will be followed by a conference dinner. 

We welcome submissions from researchers in all fields of economics who are
conducting research using the MVPF. Submissions are open to graduate 
students and faculty. All travel expenses will be covered. 

To submit a paper for the conference, please fill out the form below by May 16, 2022.

https://forms.gle/YVFmirRmzZ1ihHmN7

2nd Annual Policy Impacts Conference - Call for Papers

Application details for the Early Career Scholars Grant can be found [here](https://policyimpacts.org/events/40/application-deadline:-early-career-scholars-grant)

## The Impact of SNAP on Pregnancy-Related Health Outcomes: A United Welfare Analysis
Mohit Agrawal (Yale University) and Jintaek Song (Johns Hopkins University)

Agrawal and Song employ two empirical designs to answer the research question: “how
does SNAP impact the health outcomes of infants and birthing parents?” (1) Using
household SNAP data linked to Medicaid claims, they use exogenous variation in SNAP
recipiency due to 6-month recertification cycles to estimate the impact of SNAP
participation on pregnancy-related health. (2) Using SNAP data linked to birth records,
they exploit variation in the SNAP Emergency Allotment (EA) during the Covid-19
pandemic to estimate the causal effect of additional SNAP benefits on birth outcomes
using a difference-in-differences design. They will calculate an MVPF for the intensive
and extensive margin impacts of SNAP recipiency during pregnancy, and incorporate their
estimates to update the population-wide MVPF of SNAP from Hendren and Sprung-
Keyser (2020).

## Misreporting or Misallocation: Firms’ Behavioral Response to a Size-based Enforcement Policy in Taiwan
Elisa Cheng (Cornell University), Hsing-Wen Han (Tamkang University), and Tzu-Ting Yang (Institute of Economics)

Cheng, Han and Yang use a combination of administrative tax return data and census
survey data to examine firms’ responses to, and the welfare implications of, a sizedependent
audit policy in Taiwan. They find that firms strategically bunch below the
enforcement threshold to avoid higher audit probability, but by employing distinct sectorspecific
strategies. Based on their empirical findings, they will construct a model of firms
with production and reporting behavior, and use this to estimate the MVPF of size-base
enforcement policy.

## The Effect of Public Transportation Fare Subsidies on Mobility and Socioeconomic Outcomes
Seth Chizeck (Carnegie Mellon University) and Oluchi Mbonu (Harvard University)

Chizeck and Mbonu employ a randomized experimental design to estimate the causal
effect of a public transportation fare subsidy on mobility and welfare. Using a combination
of administrative and survey data for two treatment groups (half-fare and free-fare) and
one control group, they estimate the effects of a fare subsidy in Allegheny County, PA on
several welfare-related outcomes for low-income participants. Using their results, they
will calculate the MVPF of free and reduced-price public transportation fares.

## The Long Run Effects of Reducing Unconditional Cash Transfers
Assaf Kott (Ben-Gurion University)

Kott studies the effect of a decline in unconditional child transfers on academic and early
adulthood outcomes, leveraging a 2003 Israeli reform that scaled back child allowances
with a date-of-birth cutoff rule. Work to date has enabled the calculation of a preliminary
MVPF of 4.11 based on the attainment of a high school diploma. With support from Policy
Impacts, Kott will calculate a comprehensive MVPF of unconditional child allowances
using data on adulthood earnings, post-secondary education, records of criminal
offenses, unemployment and disability benefits, fertility, marital status, and mortality.

## Does It Matter Who Cares? Formal vs. Informal Care of the Elderly
Patrizia Massner (Stockholm University) and Jens Wikström (University of Gothenburg)

Massner and Wikström provide causal estimates of how changes in fees for formal elderly
care (e.g. nursing homes, home care) affect the utilization of this care, seniors’ health
outcomes, and their children’s labor market outcomes. Combining municipality-level data
on elderly care utilization and fees with individual-level third party data, they exploit a
unique reform that decreased the price of formal care in two-thirds of Sweden’s
municipalities to construct a difference-in-difference design. They will use their empirical
results to estimate the MVPF of additional subsidies for formal elderly care.

## R&D Subsidy and Import Substitution: Growing in the Shadow of Protection
Gustavo de Souza (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) and Florian Trouvain (Princeton University)

De Souza and Trouvain study the effect of a large-scale R&D subsidy program in Brazil on
firm growth using a matched difference-in-differences design comparing close winners
and close losers of the same subsidy application. Preliminary results indicate that the
innovation subsidy drives firm growth by facilitating firm entry into high-tariff markets
with domestically produced versions of foreign goods. Using firm-level administrative
data and balance sheet data on profits and revenue from the Annual Survey of
Manufacturing in Brazil, they will estimate the MVPF of this government R&D subsidy.


We are pleased to announce this year's recipients of our Early Career Scholars Grant.

Policy Impacts Early Career Scholars Grant Announcement

## Overview
Policy Impacts seeks to provide grants to researchers conducting causal analyses of government policy changes and who are seeking to translate those estimates into their implied welfare impact using the MVPF framework. Grantees may receive up to $20K of financial support (up to $10K for graduate student applicants) and will also receive any desired technical assistance and mentorship to help construct the MVPF of their policy of interest. We are able to pay these funds to recipients’ institutions, or pay them directly to recipients as honoraria.

Research from accepted proposals will be presented at the Policy Impacts annual conference in Summer 2024 and included in the Policy Impacts Library. The conference will bring together all grantees to present their empirical analyses and discuss issues arising from translating those estimates into their MVPF. All travel expenses for the conference will be covered by Policy Impacts.

For information on our previous winners of the Early-Career Scholars Grant -- see announcement [here](https://cdn.policyimpacts.org/cms/grant_winners_2021_efd312d409.pdf).


## Application Guidelines
The purpose of these grants is to help support researchers with credible empirical designs push to the frontier of empirical welfare estimation using the MVPF framework. To that aim, successful applicants should establish that they have a valid research design and have the ability to measure the causal effect of a policy on welfare-relevant outcomes (e.g. earnings, criminal justice outcomes, health, etc). Applications should also discuss a potential pathway to measuring the MVPF of the policy in question.

Applicants should submit a concise single-spaced proposal describing the proposed work that should be no more than 10 pages total, with no more than 5 pages single spaced description of the analysis, 4 pages of figures/tables, and 1 page description of the budget and how the money will be used. Acceptable funding uses include but are not limited to funding researcher time, research assistant time, and data acquisition.

## Eligibility 
Early career scholars (untenured) and graduate students are eligible to apply (awards for graduate students are limited to $10K plus travel funding for the 2024 conference). Projects may be collaborations with senior faculty, but funding will be limited to untenured faculty members within the collaboration.

We encourage applications from all untenured researchers. We especially welcome applications from researchers at institutions with more limited research funding opportunities and from groups traditionally under-represented in economics.

## Submission Deadlines
Please submit application materials [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXz8Vq8OPr9lrD0QQwINew5qWgrXXqp4za-fWm9D75tJCOZA/viewform?usp=send_form).
Complete applications must be submitted by November 1, 2023.
Decisions will be announced by November 30, 2023.

## Note on Indirect Costs
For applicants whose organizations will seek recovery of indirect cost from our grants, the maximum rate charged should be 10% of the total direct costs. These rates also apply to any sub-grantees that may be part of the primary applicant organization’s proposal. If the applicant’s organization has a rate that is lower than the maximum amount we allow, then the applicant’s organization should not increase their rate and should use their standard research rate (if lower than 10%).

Applicants who believe that they are unable to comply with this policy should reach out to info@policyimpacts.org to discuss possible alternative arrangements, as we will strive to ensure this policy does not prevent applications.







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Policy Impacts seeks proposals from early-career scholars who are currently conducting well-identified analyses of government policy changes and who are seeking to translate those estimates into their implied welfare impacts.

[Post-Doctoral Associate](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4kz5ys9lxfv516cyt0avh/Fall-2023-Policy-Impacts-Postdoc-Job-Description.pdf?rlkey=b33rqanjheezfh6qp1a25kwct&dl=0)

[Research Fellow](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/azwvfnepxs09x5lzzmcpb/RF-Job-Description_Policy-Impacts-2023.pdf?rlkey=kwfafy1wa3hmxqjiv8rcgmfhn&dl=0)




Policy Impacts is currently hiring for multiple positions. See position descriptions and application instructions below. 
