This dissertation is composed of two chapters on the economy-wide effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit and one chapter on the effects of monopolistic market structure in urban rental markets. Each chapter considers unintended consequences of public actions given an interconnected market place. For chapter this is skill substitutability, chapter two spatial connections, and chapter three preferences and market power.Chapter one studies the general equilibrium incidence of the Earn Income Tax Credi by formalizing the theoretical mechanisms and quantifying its empirical importance. The Earned Income Tax Credit is a $67 billion tax expenditure that subsidizes 20\% of all workers. Yet all prior analysis uses partial equilibrium assumptions on gross wages. I derive the general equilibrium incidence of wage subsidies and quantify the importance of EITC spillovers in three ways. I calculate the GE incidence of the 1993 and 2009 EITC expansions using new elasticity estimates. I contrast the incidence of counterfactual EITC and Welfare expansions. I quantify the effect of equalizing the EITC for workers with and without children. In all cases, I find spillovers are economically meaningful relative to the intended direct effects.Chapter two studies the county level labor market effects of state supplements to the Earned Income Tax Credit.Twenty eight states spend $4 billion to supplement the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, with several justifying the tax expenditure as a pro-work incentive. Yet no systematic evaluation of these supplements exists. I use state border policy variation to identify state supplements effects. I first document that subsidy rates are greater when a state's neighbor already has a supplement. Next, I assess whether supplements affect county level EITC take-up, migration, commuting, employment, and earnings. Estimates are sensitive to the estimation design and sample used. While supplements increase benefits to low-income workers, results fail to provide robust evidence of increased economic activity.Chapter three is joint with Oren Ziv. We investigate the sources, scope, and implications of landowner market power in New York City rental markets. We show how zoning regulations generate spillovers through increased markups and derive conditions under which restricting landownership concentration reduces rents. Using new building-level data from New York City, we find that a 10% increase in ownership concentration in a Census tract is correlated with a 1% increase in rent.Market power is substantial: on average, markups account for nearly a third of rents in Manhattan. Furthermore, pecuniary spillovers between zoning constraints and markups at other buildings are appreciable. Up-zoning that results in 417 additional housing units at zoning-constrained buildings reduces markups on policy-unconstrained units and generates between 5 and 19 additional units through increased competition.
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