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Matthew Pesner is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. His research interests lie in the intersection of Public, Labor, and Economic History. In August of 2022, Matt earned his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematical Economics from the Department of Economics at Colorado College in 2016. Click here to see his PhD job market paper and here for his CV.
Matthew's research revolves around understanding the development of public pensions and the safety net in the United States over the 20th century. His PhD job market paper focusses on estimating how nationalizing railroad retirement pensions in the mid-1930s affected retirement decisions, and what we can learn from this about pensions and labor supply more broadly. Other research focuses on significant changes to Social Security and public assistance ("welfare") programs in the 1950s and 1960s. These papers investigate how the state and federal governments interacted to finance these programs, how grants or expansions to Social Security affected spending on public assistance at the state and local level, and which other parties may have gained from these savings.
Matthew Pesner is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. His research interests lie in the intersection of Public, Labor, and Economic History. In August of 2022, Matt earned his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematical Economics from the Department of Economics at Colorado College in 2016. Click here to see his PhD job market paper and here for his CV.
Matthew's research revolves around understanding the development of public pensions and the safety net in the United States over the 20th century. His PhD job market paper focusses on estimating how nationalizing railroad retirement pensions in the mid-1930s affected retirement decisions, and what we can learn from this about pensions and labor supply more broadly. Other research focuses on significant changes to Social Security and public assistance ("welfare") programs in the 1950s and 1960s. These papers investigate how the state and federal governments interacted to finance these programs, how grants or expansions to Social Security affected spending on public assistance at the state and local level, and which other parties may have gained from these savings.