In many developed countries a decline in fertility has occurred. This development has been attributed to greater education of women. However, establishing a causal link is difficult as both fertility and education have changed secularly. The contribution of this paper is to study the connection...

Based on matched employer-employee data from Norway, we analyze the effects of worker displacement in 1986-1987 on their children's earnings in 1999-2001. Using displacement of fathers to indicate an exogenous earnings shock we seek to identify whether family resources have a direct effect on...

Based on matched employer-employee data from Norway, we analyze the effects of worker displacement in 1986-1987 on their children's earnings in 1999-2001. Using displacement of fathers to indicate an exogenous earnings shock we seek to identify whether family resources have a direct effect on...

While recent research finds strong evidence that birth order affects children's outcomes such as education, IQ scores, and earnings, the evidence for effects on health is more limited. This paper uses a large dataset on the population of Norway and focuses on the effect of birth order on a range...

While much is now known about the effects of physical health shocks to pregnant women on the outcomes of the in-utero child, we know little about the effects of psychological stresses. One clear form of stress to the mother comes from the death of a parent. We examine the effects of the death of...

Research increasingly shows that differences in endowments at birth need not be genetic but instead are influenced by environmental factors while the fetus is in the womb. In addition, these differences may persist well beyond childhood. In this paper, we study one such environmental factor -...

Given the wide use of childcare subsidies across countries, it is surprising how little we know about the effect of these subsidies on children's longer run outcomes. Using a sharp discontinuity in the price of childcare in Norway, we are able to isolate the effects of childcare subsidies on...