We study the effect of childbirth on local and non-local employment dynamics for both men and women using Belgian social security and geo-location data. Applying an event-study design that accounts for treatment effect heterogeneity, we show that 75 percent of the effect of the birth of a first...

This paper presents evidence from a large-scale study on gender differences in expected wages before labor market entry. Based on data for over 15,000 students, we document a significant and large gender gap in wage expectations that closely resembles actual wage differences, prevails across...

We review the empirical literature that estimates the causal effect of parent's schooling on child's schooling, and conclude that estimates differ across studies. We then consider three explanations for why this is: (a) idiosyncratic differences in data sets; (b) differences in remaining biases...

This paper investigates whether risk aversion and impatience are correlated with cognitive ability. We conduct incentive compatible choice experiments measuring risk aversion, and impatience over an annual time horizon, for a representative sample of roughly 1,000 German adults. A measure of...

The extensive literature on intergenerational mobility highlights the importance of family linkages but fails to provide credible evidence about the underlying family factors that drive the pervasive correlations. We employ a unique combination of Dutch survey and registry data that links math...

In this paper we use a parental leave reform directed towards fathers to identify the causal effects of paternity leave on children's and parents' outcomes. We document that paternity leave causes fathers to become more important for children's cognitive skills. School performance at age 16...

Decisions concerning marriage, fertility, participation, and the education of children are explained using a two-stage game-theoretical model. The paper examines the effects of (i) family law (cost of obtaining a divorce, alimony, availability of quasi-marriages such as PACS in France, and civil...

This paper examines the long run education and labor market effects from early-life exposure to the Greek 1941-42 famine. Given the short duration of the famine, we can separately identify the famine effects for cohorts exposed in utero, during infancy and at one year of age. We find that...

Decisions concerning marriage, fertility, participation, and the education of children are explained using a two-stage game-theoretical model. The paper examines the effects of (i) family law (cost of obtaining a divorce, alimony, availability of quasi-marriages such as PACS in France, and civil...

Several studies have shown that body height is positively associated with educational attainment. In this paper, we investigate the mechanisms behind this relationship using data on German pre-teen students. We show that (i) taller children are more likely to enroll in 'Gymnasium', the most...