Casey McQuillan

Princeton University, National Bureau of Economic Research

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Casey McQuillan’s research sits at the intersection of labor economics and health policy, with a sharp focus on how employer-sponsored health insurance shapes inequality. In their highly cited 2023 work, “The Health Wedge and Labor Market Inequality,” McQuillan develops a stylized model to examine how employer premium contributions—effectively a flat “head tax” per worker—distort labor markets. Their key contribution is revealing how this uniquely American system, where over half the population receives coverage through work, creates a regressive wedge that disproportionately burdens lower-wage workers and exacerbates wage disparities. With over 11 citations across related versions of this paper, the work has quickly gained traction among economists and policymakers concerned with the hidden costs of the employer-based insurance model. McQuillan’s analysis offers a rigorous framework for understanding how health benefits function as a fixed cost, distorting hiring, wages, and ultimately deepening labor market inequality. This research is essential reading for students and scholars interested in the structural links between social insurance and economic stratification.