Directionality

There was a lot of concern that the Affordable Care Act would lead to fewer full time jobs.  The most immediate effect was the opposite: more full time and fewer part time jobs. 

Now this doesn't mean you can't find individuals or sectors who are affected.  But it does cast some doubt on the potential strength of these effects.  It is like lowering or raising taxes.  In the ranges that the United States has tried in the last 30 years we had high taxes with high growth (Clinton) and low taxes with low growth (Bush).  Now the underlying relation might hold, but over this range you begin to suspect that it cannot be a dominant effect. 

In the same sense, the ACA might eventually lead to more part time jobs than the counter-factual.  But the initial look suggests that we should update our priors as to the plausible effect size if it can be so easily swamped by natural market shifts.