Boundary Discontinuity Methods and Policy Spillovers

Ekaterina S. Jardim, Mark Long, Robert Plotnick, Emma van Inwegen, Jacob Vigdor and Hilary Wething

No 30075, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The boundary discontinuity method of causal inference may yield misleading results if a policy’s impacts do not stop at the border of the implementing jurisdiction. We use geographically precise longitudinal employment data documenting worker job-to-job mobility to study policy spillovers in the context of three local minimum wage increases. Estimated spillover impacts on wages and hours are statistically significant, geographically diffuse, and sufficient to create concern regarding interpretation of results even using not-immediately-adjacent regions as controls. Spillover effects appear less concerning with smaller interventions or those or adopted in a smaller jurisdiction.

JEL-codes: J31 J61 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-lab and nep-ure
Note: LS
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w30075.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30075

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w30075

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().