{"id":{"repo_id":"maryland","oai_identifier":"oai:drum.lib.umd.edu:1903/28454"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/maryland/oai:drum.lib.umd.edu:1903/28454","repository":{"repo_id":"maryland","name":"University of Maryland","base_url":"https://api.drum.lib.umd.edu/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"ESSAYS ON THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC POLICIES ON HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT, AND INCOME INEQUALITY","abstract":"In this dissertation, I study the impact of public policies on three related but distinct economic outcomes: employment, housing stability, and income inequality. In the second chapter, I examine the employment impact of the Paycheck Protection Program, a key element of the federal government’s fiscal stimulus efforts during the 2020 coronavirus-induced recession. To assess the effect of this support on small business employment, I exploit differential timing in when firms rolled off headcount requirements needed to receive loan forgiveness. I find that as the PPP covered period expired, companies reduced active employment by a statistically significant 0.41% per week and 1.6% in the four weeks post-expiration. I estimate that, in aggregate, 907,200 jobs were lost within the four weeks after firms’ covered periods expired, as companies no longer need to maintain pre-COVID-19 headcount levels to receive PPP loan forgiveness. In the third chapter, I investigate the effectiveness of housing vouchers, the most common form of low-income rental assistance, in preventing households from facing eviction. I examine this question using newly-available public data on the universe of court-ordered evictions in the United States and exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in historical housing voucher allocation. I find that every four to six vouchers prevent one eviction in a given county, and that this effect is greater in counties with higher rent burdens and longer voucher waitlists. A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that, on average, one fourth of the cost of a housing voucher can be recovered through savings in eviction prevention alone. In the final chapter, I conduct an empirical simulation exercise that gauges the plausible impact of increased rates of college attainment on a variety of measures of income inequality and economic insecurity. Using two different methodological approaches—a distributional approach and a causal parameter approach—I find that increased rates of bachelor’s and associate degree attainment would meaningfully increase economic security for lower-income individuals, reduce poverty and near-poverty, and shrink gaps between the 90th and lower percentiles of the earnings distribution. However, increases in college attainment would not significantly reduce inequality at the very top of the distribution.","abstract_html":"In this dissertation, I study the impact of public policies on three related but distinct economic outcomes: employment, housing stability, and income inequality. In the second chapter, I examine the employment impact of the Paycheck Protection Program, a key element of the federal government’s fiscal stimulus efforts during the 2020 coronavirus-induced recession. To assess the effect of this support on small business employment, I exploit differential timing in when firms rolled off headcount requirements needed to receive loan forgiveness. I find that as the PPP covered period expired, companies reduced active employment by a statistically significant 0.41% per week and 1.6% in the four weeks post-expiration. I estimate that, in aggregate, 907,200 jobs were lost within the four weeks after firms’ covered periods expired, as companies no longer need to maintain pre-COVID-19 headcount levels to receive PPP loan forgiveness. In the third chapter, I investigate the effectiveness of housing vouchers, the most common form of low-income rental assistance, in preventing households from facing eviction. I examine this question using newly-available public data on the universe of court-ordered evictions in the United States and exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in historical housing voucher allocation. I find that every four to six vouchers prevent one eviction in a given county, and that this effect is greater in counties with higher rent burdens and longer voucher waitlists. A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that, on average, one fourth of the cost of a housing voucher can be recovered through savings in eviction prevention alone. In the final chapter, I conduct an empirical simulation exercise that gauges the plausible impact of increased rates of college attainment on a variety of measures of income inequality and economic insecurity. Using two different methodological approaches—a distributional approach and a causal parameter approach—I find that increased rates of bachelor’s and associate degree attainment would meaningfully increase economic security for lower-income individuals, reduce poverty and near-poverty, and shrink gaps between the 90th and lower percentiles of the earnings distribution. However, increases in college attainment would not significantly reduce inequality at the very top of the distribution.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Pardue, Luke"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Economics","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Kearney, Melissa S"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2021,"date_issued":"2021","date_published":"2021","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:02:20Z","subjects":[],"languages":["en"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.13016/ecih-kylp"],"render_values":[{"text":"https://doi.org/10.13016/ecih-kylp","href":"https://doi.org/10.13016/ecih-kylp","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1903/28454","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Kearney, Melissa S"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["Economics"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Pardue, Luke"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2022-02-04T06:38:04Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2022-02-04T06:38:04Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2021"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.13016/ecih-kylp"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/1903/28454"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["In this dissertation, I study the impact of public policies on three related but distinct economic outcomes: employment, housing stability, and income inequality. In the second chapter, I examine the employment impact of the Paycheck Protection Program, a key element of the federal government’s fiscal stimulus efforts during the 2020 coronavirus-induced recession. To assess the effect of this support on small business employment, I exploit differential timing in when firms rolled off headcount requirements needed to receive loan forgiveness. I find that as the PPP covered period expired, companies reduced active employment by a statistically significant 0.41% per week and 1.6% in the four weeks post-expiration. I estimate that, in aggregate, 907,200 jobs were lost within the four weeks after firms’ covered periods expired, as companies no longer need to maintain pre-COVID-19 headcount levels to receive PPP loan forgiveness. In the third chapter, I investigate the effectiveness of housing vouchers, the most common form of low-income rental assistance, in preventing households from facing eviction. I examine this question using newly-available public data on the universe of court-ordered evictions in the United States and exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in historical housing voucher allocation. I find that every four to six vouchers prevent one eviction in a given county, and that this effect is greater in counties with higher rent burdens and longer voucher waitlists. A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that, on average, one fourth of the cost of a housing voucher can be recovered through savings in eviction prevention alone. In the final chapter, I conduct an empirical simulation exercise that gauges the plausible impact of increased rates of college attainment on a variety of measures of income inequality and economic insecurity. Using two different methodological approaches—a distributional approach and a causal parameter approach—I find that increased rates of bachelor’s and associate degree attainment would meaningfully increase economic security for lower-income individuals, reduce poverty and near-poverty, and shrink gaps between the 90th and lower percentiles of the earnings distribution. However, increases in college attainment would not significantly reduce inequality at the very top of the distribution."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["ESSAYS ON THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC POLICIES ON HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT, AND INCOME INEQUALITY"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Kearney, Melissa S"],"dc:contributor.department":["Economics"],"dc:creator":["Pardue, Luke"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2022-02-04T06:38:04Z"],"dc:date.available":["2022-02-04T06:38:04Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2021"],"dc:description.abstract":["In this dissertation, I study the impact of public policies on three related but distinct economic outcomes: employment, housing stability, and income inequality. In the second chapter, I examine the employment impact of the Paycheck Protection Program, a key element of the federal government’s fiscal stimulus efforts during the 2020 coronavirus-induced recession. To assess the effect of this support on small business employment, I exploit differential timing in when firms rolled off headcount requirements needed to receive loan forgiveness. I find that as the PPP covered period expired, companies reduced active employment by a statistically significant 0.41% per week and 1.6% in the four weeks post-expiration. I estimate that, in aggregate, 907,200 jobs were lost within the four weeks after firms’ covered periods expired, as companies no longer need to maintain pre-COVID-19 headcount levels to receive PPP loan forgiveness. In the third chapter, I investigate the effectiveness of housing vouchers, the most common form of low-income rental assistance, in preventing households from facing eviction. I examine this question using newly-available public data on the universe of court-ordered evictions in the United States and exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in historical housing voucher allocation. I find that every four to six vouchers prevent one eviction in a given county, and that this effect is greater in counties with higher rent burdens and longer voucher waitlists. A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that, on average, one fourth of the cost of a housing voucher can be recovered through savings in eviction prevention alone. In the final chapter, I conduct an empirical simulation exercise that gauges the plausible impact of increased rates of college attainment on a variety of measures of income inequality and economic insecurity. Using two different methodological approaches—a distributional approach and a causal parameter approach—I find that increased rates of bachelor’s and associate degree attainment would meaningfully increase economic security for lower-income individuals, reduce poverty and near-poverty, and shrink gaps between the 90th and lower percentiles of the earnings distribution. However, increases in college attainment would not significantly reduce inequality at the very top of the distribution."],"dc:identifier":["https://doi.org/10.13016/ecih-kylp"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/1903/28454"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:title":["ESSAYS ON THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC POLICIES ON HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT, AND INCOME INEQUALITY"],"dc:type":["Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:02:20Z"}