Multiple episodes in U.S. history demonstrate that birth rates fall in response to recessions. However, the 2020 COVID-19 recession differed from earlier periods in that employment and access to contraception and abortion fell, as reproductive health centers across the country temporarily closed...

Nearly 40% of births in the United States are unintended, and this phenomenon is disproportionately common among Black Americans and women with lower education. Given that being born to unprepared parents significantly affects children's outcomes, could family planning access affect...

Social welfare programs in the United States are designed to serve as safety nets for people in hard times, in contrast with the universal approach found in many other developed western nations. In a survey of Cliometric studies of social welfare programs in the U.S., we examine the variation in...

This paper assesses the relative importance of various explanations for the gender gap in career outcomes for highly-educated workers in the U.S. corporate and financial sectors. The careers of MBAs, who graduated between 1990 and 2006 from a top U.S. business school, are studied to understand...

The 1960s ushered in a new era in U.S. demographic history characterized by significantly lower fertility rates and smaller family sizes. What catalyzed these changes remains a matter of considerable debate. This paper exploits idiosyncratic variation in the language of "Comstock" statutes,...

Almost 50 years after domestic U.S. family planning programs began, their effects on childbearing remain controversial. Using the county-level roll-out of these programs from 1964 to 1973, this paper reevaluates their shorter- and longer-term effects on U.S. fertility rates. I find that the...

This study investigates the effects of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on the living arrangements and housing behavior of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Using an event-study approach and difference-in-differences (DID) estimates, we compared immigrants above and below...

This paper advances the use of pre-analysis plans in non-experimental research settings. In a study of recent minimum wage changes, we demonstrate how analyses of medium- and long-run impacts of policy interventions can be pre-specified as extensions to short-run analyses. Further, our...

During the 1980's and early 1990's, the cigarette markets in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand were opened to U.S. cigarettes through actions taken under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act and its subsequent amendments. Using pooled annual time-series data from ten Asian countries, the...