This paper leverages the universe of U.S. tax data and state lottery wins between 2000 and 2019 to estimate the causal effect of financial resources on three key lifecycle outcomes for young adults. We find large and persistent effects on homeownership, with a response function that exhibits...

Unique data from the Berea Panel Study provides new evidence about fertility outcomes before age 30 and beliefs about these outcomes elicited soon after college graduation. Comparing outcomes and beliefs yields a measure of belief accuracy. Individuals who are unmarried and not in relationships...

This paper explores how historical gender roles become entrenched as norms over the long run. In the historical United States, gender roles on the frontier looked starkly different from those in settled areas. Male-biased sex ratios led to higher marriage rates for women and lower for men. Land...

We study the effects of job-protected leave policies on intergenerational mobility, long-run child outcomes, and parental decisions (labor market, investments in children, and fertility). We merge rich sources of historical information on family leave policies across the United States since 1973...

Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits higher fertility and lower education than other world regions. Economic and demographic theory posit that these phenomena are linked, with slow fertility decline connected to slow education growth among both adults and children. Using microdata from 33 African...

Unlike most advanced countries, the U.S. does not have a federal paid sick leave (PSL) policy; however, multiple states have adopted PSL mandates. PSL can facilitate healthcare use among women of child-bearing ages, including use of family planning services such as contraception, in-vitro...

We estimate the effects of large, positive wealth shocks on marriage and fertility in a sample of Swedish lottery players. For male winners, wealth increases marriage formation and reduces divorce risk, suggesting wealth increases men's attractiveness as prospective and current partners. Wealth...

We use administrative data from Washington State to perform a large-scale analysis of the impact of family formation on crime. Our estimates indicate that pregnancy triggers sharp declines in arrests rivaling any known intervention, supporting the view that childbirth is a "turning point" that...

Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyze the effects of exposure to globalization on the fertility and marital behavior in Germany, until recently a lowest-low fertility setting. We find that exposure to greater import competition from Eastern Europe led to worse...

Using thousands of essays written by 11-year-olds in 1969, we construct an index measuring girls' conformity to gender norms then prevalent in Britain. We link this index to outcomes over the life-cycle. Conditional on age-11 covariates, a one standard deviation increase in our index predicts a...