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About the Author(s)

Patrick Button Profile

Patrick Button is an associate professor of economics at Tulane University, executive director of The Data Hub: Tulane Center for Data Literacy, and an NBER faculty research fellow affiliated with the Economics of Aging Program. They were also previously a National Institute on Aging-funded post-doctoral scholar at the Rand Corporation’s Center for the Study of Aging.

Button’s research focuses on discrimination, primarily age and disability discrimination. They have quantified discrimination using correspondence studies — sending résumés of older and younger workers to job openings and comparing callback rates for interviews. In addition, they have studied the labor market impacts of age and disability discrimination laws on older workers and individuals with disabilities.

With funding from a National Science Foundation CAREER grant, Button has been branching out into quantifying discrimination in less-studied markets and against less-studied minority groups. They are currently studying discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and race in access to mortgage loans, and discrimination against transgender people, racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals with Medicaid in access to mental health care — “talk therapy” — appointments.

As the inaugural executive director of The Data Hub: Tulane Center for Data Literacy, they are working to establish courses, co-curricular programming, and community relationships that expand data literacy and data analysis at Tulane and in the community.

David Neumark is Distinguished Professor of Economics and codirector of the Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy at the University of California, Irvine. He has previously held positions at the Federal Reserve Board, the University of Pennsylvania, Michigan State University, and the Public Policy Institute of California, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and a senior research fellow at the Workers Compensation Research Institute.

Neumark has made research contributions in numerous areas of labor economics that intersect with major public policy issues. These include the measurement of labor market discrimination, where his contributions include the use of matched employer-employee data to test for discrimination and innovations in the application of audit and correspondence studies.

Neumark was also a contributor to the “new minimum wage research,” studying the use of state-level minimum wage variation to estimate minimum wage effects. His subsequent work examined the effects of minimum wages on the income distribution, human capital, and earnings. He also studied the complementarities between minimum wages and the Earned Income Tax Credit, as well as the labor market impacts of city living wage laws.

He has also contributed to the analysis of age discrimination, studying how stronger age discrimination laws complement policy reforms intended to increase labor supply of older workers, conducted a large-scale field experiment testing for age discrimination, and developed methods to test for age stereotypes in job ads. He has also consulted on large class-action discrimination lawsuits.

Endnotes

1. Early Evidence on the Impact of COVID-19 and the Recession on Older Workers,” Bui T, Button P, Picciotti E. NBER Working Paper 27448, June 2020, and Public Policy & Aging Report 30(4), October 2020, pp. 154–159. Go to ⤴︎
2. Age Discrimination, Job Separation, and Employment Status of Older Workers: Evidence from Self-Reports,” Johnson R, Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 5619, June 1996, and Journal of Human Resources 32(4), Fall 1997, pp. 779–811. Go to ⤴︎
3. Is It Harder for Older Workers to Find Jobs? New and Improved Evidence from a Field Experiment,” Neumark D, Burn I, Button P. NBER Working Paper 21669, November 2017, and Journal of Political Economy 127(2), April 2019, pp. 922–970.   Go to ⤴︎
4. Detecting Discrimination in Audit and Correspondence Studies,” Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 16448, September 2021, and Journal of Human Resources 47(4), Fall 2012, pp. 1128–1157.   Go to ⤴︎
5. Age Discrimination in Hiring: Evidence from Age-Blind vs. Non-Age-Blind Hiring Procedures,” Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 26623, January 2020, forthcoming in Journal of Human Resources.   Go to ⤴︎
6. Age Discrimination Laws and Labor Market Efficiency,” Neumark D, Stock W. NBER Working Paper 6088, July 1997, and Journal of Political Economy 107(5), October 1999, pp. 1081–1125.   Go to ⤴︎
7. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Challenge of Population Aging,” Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 14317, September 2008, and Research on Aging 31(1), January 2009, pp. 41–68.   Go to ⤴︎
8. Do State Laws Protecting Older Workers from Discrimination Reduce Age Discrimination in Hiring? Evidence from a Field Experiment,” Neumark D, Burn I, Button P, Chehras N. NBER Working Paper 25369, December 2018, and Journal of Law and Economics 62, May 2019, pp. 373–402.   Go to ⤴︎
9. Did Age Discrimination Protections Help Older Workers Weather the Great Recession?” Neumark D, Button P. NBER Working Paper 19216, December 2013, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 33(3), Summer 2014, pp. 566–601.   Go to ⤴︎
10. Do Stronger Age Discrimination Laws Make Social Security Laws More Effective?” Neumark D, Song J. NBER Working Paper 17467, July 2013, and Journal of Public Economics 108, December 2013, pp. 1–16.   Go to ⤴︎
11. Gendered Ageism and Disablism and Employment of Older Workers,” McLaughlin J, Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 30355, August 2022.   Go to ⤴︎
12. Why Retirement, Social Security, and Age Discrimination Policies Need to Consider the Intersectional Experiences of Older Women,” Burn I, Button P, Figinski T, McLaughlin J. NBER Working Paper 27450, June 2020, and Public Policy & Aging Report 30(3), July 2020, pp. 101–106.   Go to ⤴︎
13. Older Workers Need Not Apply? Ageist Language in Job Ads and Age Discrimination in Hiring,” Burn I, Button P, Munguia Corella L, Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 26552, May 2020. Published as “Does Ageist Language in Job Ads Predict Age Discrimination in Hiring?” in Journal of Labor Economics 40(3), July 2022, pp. 613–667.   Go to ⤴︎
14. Machine Learning and Perceived Age Stereotypes in Job Ads: Evidence from an Experiment,” Burn I, Firoozi D, Ladd D, Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 28328, January 2021.   Go to ⤴︎
15. Help Really Wanted? The Impact of Age Stereotypes in Job Ads on Applications from Older Workers,” Burn I, Firoozi D, Ladd D, Neumark D. NBER Working Paper 30287, July 2022.   Go to ⤴︎
16. See Endnote 8; also “Does Protecting Older Workers from Discrimination Make It Harder to Get Hired? Evidence from Disability Discrimination Laws,” Neumark D, Song J, Button P. NBER Working Paper 21379, September 2015, and Research on Aging 39(1), December 2016, pp. 29–63.     Go to ⤴︎

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