The relationship between completed education and adult cognition is investigated using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey. We compare adult siblings to account for shared, difficult-to-measure characteristics that likely affect this relationship, including genetics and parental...

The nineteenth-century American family experienced tremendous demographic, economic, and institutional changes. By using birth order effects as a proxy for family environment, and linked census data on men born between 1835 and 1910, we study how the family's role in human capital production...

We study differences in economic outcomes by perceived skin tone among African Americans using full-count U.S. decennial census data from the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Comparing children coded as "Black" or "Mulatto" by census enumerators and linking these children across population...

We examine the effects of an unconditional cash transfer on the economic wellbeing (material hardship, ability to meet needs, money on hand, use of friends and family for assistance, and employment) of families and children with very low incomes. We use a parameterized difference-in-differences...

Public policies often target individuals but within-family externalities of such interventions are understudied. Using a regression discontinuity design, we document how a third grade retention policy affects both the target children and their younger siblings. The policy improves test scores of...

Does the intellectual endowment of children affect parents' fertility choices? The quantity-quality model of fertility predicts that a positive (negative) shock to child endowment increases (decreases) parental demand for children. We test these predictions using Israeli data on intellectually...

This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on micro data from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using...

Evaluating insurance coverage at the individual level abstracts away from the family-level decision making behind healthcare utilization. While traditional private insurance tends to be offered to either adult individuals or whole families, public insurance eligibility is determined...

This paper studies intergenerational mobility--the transmission of family influence. We develop and estimate measures of lifetime resources motivated by economic theory that account for differences in life-cycle trajectories, and uncertainty about future income. We identify the effects of...

This paper compares the impact of long term care (LTC) risk on single and married households and studies the roles played by informal care (IC), consumption sharing within households, and Medicaid in insuring this risk. We develop a life-cycle model where individuals face survival and health...