We focus on New Zealand's clean slate legislation to analyze whether automatic concealment of criminal records improves ex-offenders' labor market outcomes. Based on the legislation's eligibility requirements, we utilize detailed court charges information to identify comparable groups of...

To meet the rising need for food and nutrition assistance during the pandemic in the United States, all states were approved to provide Emergency Allotments (EA) to households enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). In this analysis, we use the Census Bureau's Household...

Do higher skills help mitigate the negative impact of economic crises? We study the effect of two major economic setbacks–the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2007-09 and the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020–on wage progression for New Zealanders with different skill levels. For our analysis, we...

This paper aims to challenge the implicitly made assumption in the economics of crime literature that findings are universally applicable across cultures and race. Based on very precise judicial and demographic data from New Zealand we are able to replicate the results of an earlier study by...

Does having a child immunised at the prior schedule genuinely impact the likelihood of vaccinating the child at the following schedule? Using longitudinal data from Growing Up in New Zealand study, we apply a random-effects probit model that also controls for the initial immunisation status. We...