Showing papers in "Journal of Human Resources in 2009"
TL;DR: This article examined the effects of remediation using a unique data set of over 28,000 students and found that students in remediation are more likely to persist in college in comparison to students with similar backgrounds who were not required to take the courses.
Abstract: Each year, thousands graduate high school academically underprepared for college. Many must take remedial or developmental postsecondary coursework, and there is a growing debate about the effectiveness of such programs. This paper examines the effects of remediation using a unique data set of over 28,000 students. To account for selection biases, the paper implements an instrumental variables strategy based on variation in placement policies and the importance of proximity in college choice. The results suggest that students in remediation are more likely to persist in college in comparison to students with similar backgrounds who were not required to take the courses.
325 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the impact of job loss on overall and cause-specific mortality in Sweden and identified the workers displaced due to all establishment closures in Sweden in 1987 and 1988.
Abstract: This paper examines the impact of job loss on overall and cause-specific mortality. Using linked employer-employee data, we identified the workers displaced due to all establishment closures in Sweden in 1987 and 1988. Hence, we have extended the case study approach, which has dominated the plant closure literature. The overall mortality risk among men increased by 44 percent during the first four years following job loss, while there was no impact on either female overall mortality or in the longer run. For both sexes, however, there was an about twofold short-run increase in suicides and alcohol-related mortality.
319 citations
TL;DR: This article used the staggered timing and age targeting of these grants to examine how the childcare subsidy implicit in public schooling affects maternal labor supply and found that four of ten single mothers with no younger children entered the work force with public school enrollment of a five-year-old child.
Abstract: Since the mid-1960s, many state governments have introduced subsidies for school districts that offer kindergarten. This paper uses the staggered timing and age targeting of these grants to examine how the childcare subsidy implicit in public schooling affects maternal labor supply. Using data from five Censuses, I estimate that four of ten single mothers with no younger children entered the work force with public school enrollment of a five-year-old child. No significant labor supply responses are detected among other mothers with eligible children. Results also indicate that at least one in three marginal public school enrollees would have otherwise attended private school.
294 citations
TL;DR: This article found that the positive relationship between kindergarten entrance age and school achievement primarily reflects skill accumulation prior to kindergarten, rather than a heightened ability to learn in school among older children, and that having older classmates boosts a child's test scores but increases the probability of grade repetition and diagnoses of learning disabilities such as ADHD.
Abstract: We present evidence that the positive relationship between kindergarten entrance age and school achievement primarily reflects skill accumulation prior to kindergarten, rather than a heightened ability to learn in school among older children. The association between achievement test scores and entrance age appears during the first months of kindergarten, declines sharply in subsequent years, and is especially pronounced among children from upper-income families, a group likely to have accumulated the most skills prior to school entry. Finally, having older classmates boosts a child's test scores but increases the probability of grade repetition and diagnoses of learning disabilities such as ADHD.
289 citations
237 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present evidence of differential treatment in the hiring of obese individuals in the Swedish labor market, where fictitious applications were sent to real job openings, where one facial photo of an otherwise identical applicant was manipulated to show the individual as obese.
Abstract: This study presents evidence of differential treatment in the hiring of obese individuals in the Swedish labor market. Fictitious applications were sent to real job openings. The applications were sent in pairs, where one facial photo of an otherwise identical applicant was manipulated to show the individual as obese. Applications sent with the weight-manipulated photo had a significantly lower callback response for an interview: Six percentage points lower for men and eight percentage points lower for women. This differential treatment occurs differently for men and women: The results for men are driven by attractiveness, while the results for women are driven by obesity.
217 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the impact of Burundi's civil war on children's health status by combining household survey data with event data on the timing and location of armed conflicts.
Abstract: This paper combines household survey data with event data on the timing and location of armed conflicts to examine the impact of Burundi's civil war on children's health status. The identification strategy exploits exogenous variation in the war's timing across provinces and the exposure of children's birth cohorts to the fighting. After controlling for province of residence, birth cohort, individual and household characteristics, and province-specific time trends, the authors find that children exposed to the war have on average 0.515 standard deviations lower height-for-age z-scores than non-exposed children. This negative effect is robust to specifications exploiting alternative sources of exogenous variation.
215 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the effects of California's billion-dollar class-size reduction program on student achievement and found that the increase in the share of teachers with neither prior experience nor full certification dampened the benefits of smaller classes, particularly in schools with high shares of economically disadvantaged, minority students.
Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of California's billion-dollar class-size-reduction program on student achievement. It uses year-to-year differences in class size generated by variation in enrollment and the state's class-size-reduction program to identify both the direct effects of smaller classes and related changes in teacher quality. Although the results show that smaller classes raised mathematics and reading achievement, they also show that the increase in the share of teachers with neither prior experience nor full certification dampened the benefits of smaller classes, particularly in schools with high shares of economically disadvantaged, minority students.
215 citations
TL;DR: It is found that children who consume school lunches are more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches even though they enter kindergarten with the same obesity rates.
Abstract: This paper assesses whether school lunches contribute to childhood obesity. I employ two methods to isolate the causal impact of school lunches on obesity. First, using panel data, I find that children who consume school lunches are more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches even though they enter kindergarten with the same obesity rates. Second, I leverage the sharp discontinuity in eligibility for reduced-price lunch to compare children just above and just below the eligibility cutoff. Students are more likely to be obese, and weigh more if they are income-eligible for reduced price school lunches.
206 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the impact of smoke from massive wildfires blanketed Indonesia in late 1997 and found that the pollution led to 15,600 missing children in Indonesia (1.2 percent of the affected birth cohorts).
Abstract: Smoke from massive wildfires blanketed Indonesia in late 1997. This paper examines the impact that this air pollution (particulate matter) had on fetal, infant, and child mortality. Exploiting the sharp timing and spatial patterns of the pollution and inferring deaths from "missing children" in the 2000 Indonesian Census, I find that the pollution led to 15,600 missing children in Indonesia (1.2 percent of the affected birth cohorts). Prenatal exposure to pollution drives the result. The effect size is much larger in poorer areas, suggesting that differential effects of pollution contribute to the socioeconomic gradient in health.
193 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors exploit a high school pilot scheme to identify the causal effect of advanced high school math on labor market outcomes and find clear evidence of a causal relationship between math and earnings for students who are induced to choose math after being exposed to the pilot scheme.
Abstract: In this paper, we exploit a high school pilot scheme to identify the causal effect of advanced high school math on labor market outcomes. The pilot scheme reduced the costs of choosing advanced math because it allowed for a more flexible combination of math with other courses. We find clear evidence of a causal relationship between math and earnings for students who are induced to choose math after being exposed to the pilot scheme. The effect partly stems from the fact that these students end up with a higher education.
TL;DR: It is demonstrated how Benford’s law, the distribution that first digits of numbers in certain data sets should follow, can be used to test for data abnormalities.
Abstract: "It is 15:00 in Nairobi. Do you know where your enumerators are??" Good quality data is paramount for applied economic research. If the data are distorted, corresponding conclusions may be incorrect. We demonstrate how Benford's law, the distribution that first digits of numbers in certain data sets should follow, can be used to test for data abnormalities. We conduct an analysis of nine commonly used data sets and find that much data from developing countries is of poor quality while data from the United States seems to be of better quality. Female and male respondents give data of similar quality.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the causal effect of child labor participation on socioeconomic outcomes such as education, wages, and health using panel data from Vietnam and an instrumental variables strategy.
Abstract: Although there is extensive literature on the determinants of child labor and many initiatives aimed at combating it, there is limited evidence on the consequences of child labor on socioeconomic outcomes such as education, wages, and health. The authors evaluate the causal effect of child labor participation on these outcomes using panel data from Vietnam and an instrumental variables strategy. Five years subsequent to the child labor experience, they find significant negative effects on school participation and educational attainment, but also find substantially higher earnings for those (young) adults who worked as children. The authors find no significant effects on health. Over a longer horizon, they estimate that from age 30 onward the forgone earnings attributable to lost schooling exceed any earnings gain associated with child labor and that the net present discounted value of child labor is positive for discount rates of 11.5 percent or higher. The authors show that child labor is prevalent among households likely to have higher borrowing costs, that are farther from schools, and whose adult members experienced negative returns to their own education. This evidence suggests that reducing child labor will require facilitating access to credit and will also require households to be forward looking.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess whether responses to information about risk impact estimates of the relationship between ozone and asthma in Southern California using a regression discontinuity design, and find smog alerts significantly reduce daily attendance at two major outdoor facilities.
Abstract: This paper assesses whether responses to information about risk impact estimates of the relationship between ozone and asthma in Southern California. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find smog alerts significantly reduce daily attendance at two major outdoor facilities. Using daily time-series regression models that include year-month and small area fixed effects, I find estimates of the effect of ozone for children and the elderly that include information are significantly larger than estimates that do not. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that individuals take substantial action to reduce exposure to risk; estimates ignoring these actions are severely biased.
TL;DR: This article used data from the earlier and later cohorts of the NLSY to estimate the effect of marriage and childbearing on wages and found that early marriage and early childbearing can lead to substantial decreases in lifetime earnings.
Abstract: We use data from the earlier and later cohorts of the NLSY to estimate the effect of marriage and childbearing on wages. Our estimates imply that marriage lowers female wages 2-4 percent in the year of marriage. Marriage also lowers the wage growth of men and women by about two and four percentage points, respectively. A first birth lowers female wages 2-3 percent, but has no effect on wage growth. Male wages are unaffected by childbearing. These findings suggest that early marriage and childbearing can lead to substantial decreases in lifetime earnings.
TL;DR: The authors found evidence that teenage childbearing likely reduces the probability of receiving a high school diploma by 5 to 10 percentage points, reduces annual income as a young adult by $1,000 to $2,400, and may increase the likelihood of receiving cash assistance and decrease years of schooling.
Abstract: The question of whether giving birth as a teenager has negative economic consequences for the mother remains controversial despite substantial research. In this paper, we build upon existing literature, especially the literature that uses the experience of teenagers who had a miscarriage as the appropriate comparison group. We show that miscarriages are not random events, but rather are likely correlated with (unobserved) community-level factors, casting some doubt on previous findings. Including community-level fixed effects in our specifications lead to important changes in our estimates. By making use of information on the timing of miscarriages as well as birth control choices preceding the teenage pregnancies we construct more relevant control groups for teenage mothers. We find evidence that teenage childbearing likely reduces the probability of receiving a high school diploma by 5 to 10 percentage points, reduces annual income as a young adult by $1,000 to $2,400, and may increase the probability of receiving cash assistance and decrease years of schooling.
TL;DR: In this article, a United Kingdom pilot study designed to test whether a means-tested conditional cash transfer paid to 16-to-18-year-olds for staying in full-time education is an effective way of reducing the proportion of school dropouts.
Abstract: This paper evaluates a United Kingdom pilot study designed to test whether a means-tested conditional cash transfer paid to 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in full-time education is an effective way of reducing the proportion of school dropouts. The transfer's impact is substantial: In the first year, full-time education participation rates increase by around 4.5 percentage points while the proportion receiving two years of education increases by around 6. 7 percentage points. Those receiving the full payment have the largest initial increase in participation and some evidence is found suggesting that part of the effect can be explained by liquidity constraints.
TL;DR: This paper examined a household's decision to adjust its size through child fostering, an institution where biological parents temporarily send children to live with other families, and found that households experiencing negative idiosyncratic income shocks, child gender imbalances, located further from primary schools, or with more "good" quality network members (fewer subsistence farmers and unmarried individuals and more educated members) are significantly more likely to send a child.
Abstract: Using data I collected in Africa, this paper examines a household's decision to adjust its size through child fostering, an institution where biological parents temporarily send children to live with other families. Households experiencing negative idiosyncratic income shocks, child gender imbalances, located further from primary schools, or with more "good" quality network members (fewer subsistence farmers and unmarried individuals and more educated members) are significantly more likely to send a child. Results reject an overall symmetric fostering model across senders and receivers, but evidence of symmetry is found when the test is restricted to exogenous income shocks and gender imbalances.
TL;DR: In this article, the relationship between a woman's intra-household bargaining position and her welfare within marriage using household data from rural China was analyzed, and the authors found that dowry positively impacts numerous measures of a wife's welfare, including household purchases, the time allocation of household members, and woman's satisfaction with life.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between a woman's intrahousehold bargaining position and her welfare within marriage using household data from rural China. Simultaneity problems are overcome by using dowry to proxy for bargaining position. Omitted variable bias is addressed by using grain shocks in the year preceding marriage as an instrument for dowry. Instrumented dowry positively impacts numerous measures of a wife's welfare, including household purchases, the time allocation of household members, and the woman's satisfaction with life, offering strong evidence in support of collective models of the household.
TL;DR: This article examined peer effects in welfare use among refugees and found that long-term welfare dependence increases if the individual is placed in a welfare dependent community, while the number of contacts is either irrelevant or negatively related to welfare receipt; not controlling for residential self-selection yields the opposite conclusion.
Abstract: This paper examines peer effects in welfare use among refugees. We exploit a Swedish refugee placement policy, which generated exogenous variation in peer group composition. Our analysis distinguishes between the quantity of contacts—the number of individuals of the same ethnicity—and the quality of contacts —welfare use among members of the ethnic group. Long-term welfare dependence increases if the individual is placed in a welfare dependent community. The number of contacts is either irrelevant or negatively related to welfare receipt; not controlling for residential self-selection yields the opposite conclusion. The results are very similar across household types and in different parts of the predicted earnings distribution.
TL;DR: The authors found that a same-sex instructor increases average grade performance by at most 5 percent of its standard deviation and decreases the likelihood of dropping a class by 1.2 percentage points.
Abstract: Many wonder whether teacher gender plays an important role in higher education by influencing student achievement and subject interest. The data used in this paper help identify average effects from male and female college students assigned to male or female teachers. We find instructor gender plays only a minor role in determining college student achievement. Nevertheless, the small effects provide evidence that gender role models matter to some college students. A same-sex instructor increases average grade performance by at most 5 percent of its standard deviation and decreases the likelihood of dropping a class by 1.2 percentage points.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors improved upon the Difference in Difference approach by examining exogenous shocks using a generalized difference in difference (GDD) technique that identifies economic effects of hurricanes, and found that workers in Florida counties hit by a hurricane experience faster earnings and slower employment growth than workers in unaffected counties.
Abstract: This study improves upon the Difference in Difference approach by examining exogenous shocks using a Generalized Difference in Difference (GDD) technique that identifies economic effects of hurricanes. Based on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data, worker earnings in Florida counties hit by a hurricane increase up to 4 percent, whereas earnings in neighboring counties decrease. Over time, workers experience faster earnings and slower employment growth than workers in unaffected counties. Hurricanes have a greater impact in coastal and Panhandle counties, and powerful hurricanes have greater economic effects than weaker ones. Further, the GDD technique is applicable to analyze a wider range of exogenous shocks than hurricanes.
TL;DR: The Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarships as mentioned in this paper incentivizes students for their high school achievement with college financial aid by using individual-level data from the ACT exams, and the program did not achieve one of its stated goals, inducing more students to prefer to stay in Tennessee for college, but did induce large increases in performance on the ACT.
Abstract: Most policies seeking to improve high school achievement historically either provided incentives for educators or punished students. Since 1991, however, over a dozen states, comprising approximately a quarter of the nation's high school seniors, have implemented broad-based merit scholarship programs that reward students for their high school achievement with college financial aid. This paper analyzes one of these initiatives, the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarships, using individual-level data from the ACT exams. The program did not achieve one of its stated goals, inducing more students to prefer to stay in Tennessee for college, but it did induce large increases in performance on the ACT. Policies that reward students for performance do affect behavior and may be an effective way to improve high school achievement.
TL;DR: The authors examined how the cognitive skills of elementary school-aged children are affected by having a mother enter prison, using panel data on approximately 7,000 children for 12 years and found that maternal imprisonment is not associated with a decline in children's reading or math standardized test scores.
Abstract: This paper examines how the cognitive skills of elementary school-aged children are affected by having a mother enter prison, using panel data on approximately 7,000 children for 12 years. To identify the effect of maternal imprisonment, change in test scores of children whose mothers enter prison are compared with the change in test scores of a nonexperimental comparison group controlling for observed and unobserved fixed characteristics. Results suggest that maternal imprisonment is not associated with a decline in children's reading or math standardized test scores.
TL;DR: The authors found that around half of the systematic sorting on education is explained by the tendency of individuals to marry someone who went to the same educational institution or to an institution near them, which may be due to low search frictions or selection of people with the same preferences into the same institutions.
Abstract: Individuals match on length and type of education. We find that around half of the systematic sorting on education is explained by the tendency of individuals to marry someone who went to the same educational institution or to an institution near them. This may be due to low search frictions or selection of people with the same preferences into the same institutions. The residual half of the systematic sorting on education is a direct effect of partners ' education, which is potentially explained by complementarities in household production in couples with same education.
TL;DR: In this paper, a new method for estimating family labor supply in the presence of taxes is proposed, which accounts for continuous hours choices, measurement error, unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for work, the nonlinear form of the tax code, and fixed costs of work in one comprehensive specification.
Abstract: This paper proposes a new method for estimating family labor supply in the presence of taxes. This method accounts for continuous hours choices, measurement error, unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for work, the nonlinear form of the tax code, and fixed costs of work in one comprehensive specification. Estimated on data from the 2001 PSID, the resulting elasticities for married males are consistent with those found elsewhere in the literature but female wage elasticities are substantially smaller than those found in most of the literature. Simulations of recent tax acts predict small effects on the labor supply of married couples.
TL;DR: The authors employ conditional second moments to identify the impact of education in wage regressions where education is treated as endogenous and find that accounting for the endogeneity of education increases the estimated return to education from 6 percent to 10 percent.
Abstract: This paper employs conditional second moments to identify the impact of education in wage regressions where education is treated as endogenous. This approach avoids the use of instrumental variables in a setting where instruments are frequently not available. We employ this methodology to estimate the returns to schooling for a sample of Australian workers. We find that accounting for the endogeneity of education in this manner increases the estimated return to education from 6 percent to 10 percent.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used data from the 1996-2004 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to show that the increased tax subsidy was associated with substantial increases in private coverage among self-employed workers and their spouses.
Abstract: The share of health insurance premiums that self-employed workers can deduct when computing federal income taxes rose from 30 percent in 1996 to 100 percent in 2003. Data from the 1996-2004 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey are used to show that the increased tax subsidy was associated with substantial increases in private coverage among self-employed workers and their spouses. Estimated effects on public coverage and the coverage of children were smaller in magnitude and less precisely estimated. Simulation results show that much of the post-1996 subsidy increase represented an inframarginal transfer to persons who would have had held private insurance anyway. Nevertheless, increased subsidization expanded private coverage by 1.1 to 1.7 million persons, at a cost per newly insured person less than $2,300 in all simulations—a cost below that found in simulations of more broadly based subsidies.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extend the nonparametric literature on partially identified probability distributions and use their analytical results to provide sharp bounds on the impact of universal health insurance on provider visits and medical expenditures.
Abstract: We extend the nonparametric literature on partially identified probability distributions and use our analytical results to provide sharp bounds on the impact of universal health insurance on provider visits and medical expenditures. Our approach accounts for uncertainty about the reliability of self-reported insurance status as well as uncertainty created by unknown counterfactuals. We construct health insurance validation data using detailed information from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Imposing relatively weak nonparametric assumptions, we estimate that under universal coverage monthly per capita provider visits and expenditures would rise by less than 8 percent and 16 percent, respectively, across the nonelderly population.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present and estimate a model of home production with heterogeneous costs and benefits to fertility, and show that a sex preference instrument in Taiwan produces IV estimates closer to the estimated ATE than in the United States, where sex preference is weaker.
Abstract: The local average treatment effect (LATE) may differ from the average treatment effect (ATE) when those influenced by the instrument are not representative of the overall population. Heterogeneity in treatment effects may imply that parameter estimates from 2SLS are uninformative regarding the average treatment effect, motivating a search for instruments that affect a larger share of the population. In this paper, I present and estimate a model of home production with heterogeneous costs and benefits to fertility. The results indicate that a sex-preference instrument in Taiwan produces IV estimates closer to the estimated ATE than in the United States, where sex preference is weaker.