We assess the implications of nonlinearity for IV and FE estimation when the estimated model is inappropriately assumed to be linear. Our application is the causal link between family income and child outcomes. Our nonlinear IV and FE estimates show an increasing, concave relationship between...

This paper examines the importance of network-based intergenerational correlations in South Africa. I use longitudinal data on young South Africans to examine the covariance of children's employment with the usefulness of parents in their job search. I find that fathers serve as useful network...

There is a widespread perception that externalities from troubled children are significant, though measuring them is difficult due to data and methodological limitations. We estimate the negative spillovers caused by children from troubled families by exploiting a unique dataset in which...

In 1968, the Taiwanese government extended compulsory education from 6 to 9 years and opened over 150 new junior high schools at a differential rate among regions. Within each region, we exploit variations across cohorts in new junior high school openings to construct an instrument for...

This paper explores the importance of the home and school environments in explaining the gender gap in disruptive behavior. We document large differences in the gender gap across key features of the home environment -- boys do especially poorly in broken families. In contrast, we find little...

Almost 50 years after domestic US 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 US fertility rates. I find that the...

Previous research has not always found that boys and girls are treated differently in rural India. However estimates of the effect of gender on parental investments could be biased if girls end up in larger families due to son-biased stopping rules. Using a novel identification strategy that...

We identify birth wantedness as a source of better child outcomes. In Vietnam, the year of birth is widely believed to determine success. As a result, cohorts born in auspicious years are 12 percent larger. Comparing siblings with one another, those of auspicious cohorts are found to have two...

This paper uses a field experiment to test whether intrahousehold heterogeneity in discount factors leads to inefficient strategic savings behavior. I gave married couples in rural Kenya the opportunity to open both joint and individual bank accounts at randomly assigned interest rates. I also...