U.S. Census Bureau economists and social scientists are set to present their research findings at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association (AEA) and Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA) in Philadelphia Jan. 3-5. This conference typically hosts thousands of attendees from around the world and showcases the latest economic research.

This year’s conference includes nine papers by Census Bureau researchers examining the outcomes of children, adults, households, workers and businesses on a variety of dimensions including earnings, employment, program participation, education, health care, business formation, regional economics and prices. The papers being presented include:

• Unemployment Insurance Generosity and the Wages of New Hires (Kevin Rinz and David Wasser). This paper examines whether the more generous unemployment insurance (UI) benefits in response to the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the labor supply and forced firms to bid up wages excessively, especially for low-wage jobs. The authors find that, prior to 2020, increases in UI generosity modestly increased the wages of new hires and reduced hiring rates. During and after the pandemic, however, wages were minimally responsive to UI generosity throughout the wage distribution and for all types of workers, and no evidence of effects on hiring is found.
• Economic Drivers of Medicaid Churn and the Role of Income Volatility (Gina Li, Emilie Jackson, Ajin Lee and Victoria Udalova). Using the universe of administrative Medicaid enrollment data, linked with quarterly Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) data on workers from the Census Bureau, this paper evaluates the extent to which the observed patterns in Medicaid enrollment dynamics and churn are explained by income volatility and employment changes. The authors examine heterogeneity across states and state-level policies and estimate how alternative eligibility designs may affect churn.
• CTC and ACTC Participation Results and IRS-Census Match Methodology (Charles Hokayem, Ciyata Coleman, Ashley Erceg, Sanghun Kim, Ethan Krohn, Krishnan Patel and Dean Pluger). This paper presents a new methodology for estimating participation (take-up) of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) that relies on linking the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement to IRS administrative data. Using this “Exact Match” approach, the authors find that 93% of eligible taxpayers in 2020 participated in the CTC and ACTC program, with a dollar participation rate of 91%. The authors also present additional details on the characteristics of participants and non-participants.
• Can Individualized Student Supports Improve Economic Outcomes for Children in High Poverty Schools? (Jamie Gracie, Benjamin Goldman and Sonya Porter). This paper examines why students in high-poverty schools perform worse academically and in the labor market than their peers in low-poverty schools and finds that up to one-third of the achievement gap can be attributed to absenteeism. In particular, among high-poverty schools, moving from the 75th to the 25th percentile of the absence distribution would raise high school graduation rates by 2.3 percentage points and increase average earnings at age 25 by $3,600. The authors estimate that nationwide adoption of the "Communities in Schools" program could reduce the achievement gap by 20%.
• Segregation Academies: The Impact of "Whites-Only" Private Schools (Danielle Graves Williamson and Jennifer Withrow). In response to public schools integrating in the 1960s and 1970s, Southern White parents organized all-White private schools known as “segregation academies.” The authors find that, on average, a segregation academy causes total public-school enrollment to decline by 14% across the Deep South. Evidence suggests that White students drive this decline: openings cause a 36% decrease in White public enrollment and no effect on Black enrollment. These schools offset approximately half of court-ordered improvements in school integration. The paper also examines the long-term impact of segregation academies on labor market outcomes, educational attainment, migration and mobility of students.
• The Local Origins of Business Formation (Emin Dinlersoz, Timothy Dunne, John Haltiwanger and Veronika Penciakova). Using comprehensive administrative data on business applications, this paper analyzes the spatial disparity in the creation of business ideas and the formation of new employer startups from these ideas. The authors find that local demographic and household characteristics, including income, education, age and foreign-born share, are generally strong positive correlates of both idea generation and transition to startups. In addition, there is a close correspondence between the actual rank of locations in terms of startups per capita and the predicted rank based only on observable local conditions.
• Technifying Ventures (Yoshiki Ando, Emin Dinlersoz, Jeremy Greenwood and Ruben Piazzesi). This paper investigates the business startup process and, specifically, the adoption of advanced technologies and sources of funding. Using firm-level Census Bureau data, the authors find that advanced technology use and venture capital (VC) backing both matter significantly for firms’ employment and revenue outcomes, with VC backing having a larger effect on firms with advanced technology. A model of startups is then constructed, the implications of business taxation and subsidies are studied, and the significance of the availability of advanced technology and VC in the economy is quantified.
• The Earnings of U.S. Physicians in International Comparison (Josh Gottlieb, Jeffrey Hicks, Lisa Laun, Mårten Palme, Maria Polyakova, Victoria Udalova and Maria Ventura). This paper uses administrative tax data from the U.S., Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands to compare physician earnings in both absolute levels and relative positions in each country’s income distribution. The authors find that reducing U.S. physician earnings to the European level would mechanically save about 5% of U.S. health care spending. Policy changes that shift U.S. physicians’ incomes to match physicians’ relative positions in other high-income countries’ distributions would lead to substantially less dramatic or no savings.
• Quality-Adjusted Unit Value Index: Are Changes in Average Prices Inflation or Quality Change? (John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, R. Benjamin Rodriguez and Matthew Shapiro). Digitized item-level transactions data allow for the calculation of the average sale price for the universe of items within a product group. Items classified within the same product groups often differ in quality, making changes in average unit values a combination of changing prices, quality and product mix. The authors develop and apply hedonic and alternative methods to scanner data from Circana for consumer-technology products to compute quality-adjusted unit value indices (QUVIs) and decompose changes into inflation, quality-change and product mix.

There will also be presentations based on Census Bureau microdata by researchers using the Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) network.

Census Bureau economists and our FSRDC collaborators play a key role in creating and improving statistical products essential to policymakers, businesses, researchers and the public. These products come from a variety of sources such as survey microdata on businesses and households, linked employer-employee data, and confidential microdata from federal and state administrative and statistical agencies. Our economists use these data to study a variety of topics to help the Census Bureau better measure the economy.

More information on all the papers to be presented at the AEA/ASSA meeting, including a preliminary program with abstracts, is available at 2026 ASSA Preliminary Program.

More information on working papers by Census Bureau and FSRDC researchers is available at Research Working Papers.