John Bound, a “latecomer” to economics, on the impact of disability on labor force activity

John Bound, George E. Johnson Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Economics, emeritus at the University of Michigan, discusses his varied academic career, the mentors who played significant roles in his life, and his pioneering research on the impacts of health and disability payments on the labor market. 

In this episode, Bound and Ashenfelter discuss:

• Bound’s early education and how his desire to attend UC Berkeley changed after advice led him to Harvard as a philosophy major.  
• Bound’s circuitous academic journey from nursing, teaching middle and high school math, graduate-level philosophy and eventually to Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. “...Maybe I want to do some kind of social science. If I go to an ed school, they have master's programs that will let me dabble in a number of different social sciences.”
• How he transitioned to economics and how he was influenced by several key mentors, including Richard Freeman and Zvi Griliches. “I found [Freeman] an extremely compelling teacher, [and] I got the sense from him that a labor economist could have important insights about important things that were going on in people's lives.”  
• How he became a research assistant (RA) for Zvi Griliches and how this experience led to Harvard’s Ph.D. program. 
• His decision to accept an appointment at the University of Michigan. “Turns out I met my wife here, so it's completely overwhelmingly the right thing for me to have done.” 
• The series of public health and medical research papers he worked on with his wife Arline Geronimus. 
• Bound’s research on the impacts of health and disability payments on the labor market. “...to what extent is the Social Security system pulling individuals out of the workforce has been a controversial issue starting roughly at the time I was getting my PhD … my job market paper was on the effect of the social security disability system on men's participation in the workforce.” 
• His insights on improving the disability income program, particularly regarding the standards that administrative law judges use for appeals “Making the standards more uniform across judges, I think makes sense.

John Bound earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1987. He is the George E. Johnson Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Economics, at the University of Michigan. He is known for his research on the effect of health on the labor force, especially among older working-age adults. His work also examines the U.S. Social Security Disability Program's impact on their behavior and economic well-being. "The Work Goes On"—a podcast produced by Princeton's Industrial Relations Section (IR Section)—is an oral history of industrial relations and labor economics hosted by Princeton's Orley Ashenfelter.