Volume 38, Number 4 (Fall) 2003
Beegle, Kathleen, and Wendy A. Stock. 2003. "The Labor Market Effects of Disability Discrimination Laws." Journal of Human Resources 38(4):.
We present new evidence on the effects of disability discrimination laws based on variation induced by state-level anti-discrimination measures passed prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The evidence expands upon other research that focuses solely on the impact of the ADA by using a “quasi-experimental” framework that generates treatment and comparison groups. We find that disability discrimination laws are associated with lower relative earnings of the disabled, with slightly lower disabled relative labor force participation rates, but are not associated with lower relative employment rates for the disabled once we control for preexisting employment trends among the disabled.
Kathleen Beegle is an economist at The World Bank, Washington, D.C. Wendy A. Stock is an associate professor of economics at Montana State University, Bozeman, MT. The authors thank Nico Ochmann and David Rumpel for thorough research assistance. They also thank Douglas Kruse, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the Midwest Economics Association and Southern Economics Association Meetings for helpful comments. These are the views of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank. The authors gratefully acknowledge funding support from National Institute on Aging grant number R03 AG16788-01. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning April 2004 through March 2007 from Kathleen Beegle, MSN MC3-306, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20433.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X