We examine how a German paid parental leave reform causally affected early childhood living arrangements. The reform replaced a means-tested benefit with a universal transfer paid out for a shorter period. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that the reform increased the...

This paper studies within-family decision making regarding investment in income protection for surviving spouses. A change in US pension law (the Retirement Equity Act of 1984) is used as an instrument to derive predictions both from a simple Nash-bargaining model of the household and from the...

In a model on population and endogenous technological change, Kremer combines a short-run Malthusian scenario where income determines the population that can be sustained, with the Boserupian insight that greater population spurs technological change and can therefore lift a country out of its...

This paper explores the role of marriage when markets are incomplete so that individuals cannot diversify their idiosyncratic labor income risk. Ceteris paribus, an individual would prefer to marry a hedge (i.e. a spouse whose income is negatively correlated with her own) as it raises her...

Yes, subject to concerns about Medicare inefficiencies and potentially self-confirming skepticism. The U.S. social security system-broadly defined to include Medicare-faces significant financial problems as the result of an aging population. But demographic change is also likely to raise...

This paper explores how EU countries can address various challenges (including the aging of the population) affecting their systems of old-age income support. It presents two scenarios illustrating the most important uncertainties surrounding the major developments that affect the pension...

We use difference-in-difference methods and data from the 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation to test whether the ACA dependent care provision is associated with family structure and public program participation among young adults. Findings indicate that implementation of the...

We use the differences between life satisfaction and emotional well-being of employed and unemployed persons to analyze how a person's employment status affects cognitive well-being. Our results show that unemployment has a negative impact on cognitive, but not on affective well-being, which we...

This paper applies the theory of relational contracts to a model in which a couple decides whether to marry or cohabit, how many children to have and subsequently whether to stay together or separate. We make precise the idea that cooperation in a household can be supported by self interest....