This paper examines how access to informal insurance shapes family responses to reductions in social welfare benefits, and how these adjustments affect children's development. In 2003, Israel reformed its child allowance program, significantly reducing unconditional cash benefits for large...

Despite the attractiveness of experiments from the perspective of program evaluation, there have been very few program experiments in the area of family planning. This paper evaluates an ongoing family planning program experiment in rural Bangladesh. The paper estimates the effect of mothers'...

Despite the attractiveness of experiments from the perspective of program evaluation, there have been very few program experiments in the area of family planning. This paper evaluates an ongoing family planning program experiment in rural Bangladesh. The paper estimates the effect of mothers'...

We develop a positive theory of the adoption of child labor laws. Workers who compete with children in the labor market support the introduction of a child labor ban, unless their own working children provide a large fraction of family income. Since child labor income depends on family size,...

Using a representative sample of Ecuadorian young women’s households, this paper focuses on the role played by education in shaping fertility choices and labor market participation. Education, which is found to be endogenous with respect to teenage childbearing, is instrumented by a reform...

We study an economy in which the rate of change of population depends on population policy decisions. This requires population as well as capital as state variables. By showing the algebraic relationship between the shadow price of the population and the shadow price of the per capita capital...

We analyze the effect of a Chilean school reform that lengthened the school day from half to full-day shifts on the likelihood that adolescent girls become mothers. By increasing the number of hours spent in school, the reform curtails opportunities to engage in risky sexual behaviors. Using...

We investigate the importance of various mechanisms by which child care policies can affect life‐cycle patterns of employment and fertility among women, as well as long‐run cognitive outcomes among children. A dynamic structural model of employment, fertility, and child care use is estimated...

This is the first study exploring the causal effect of education on teenage fertility in Argentina. We exploit an exogenous variation in education from the staggered implementation of the 1993 reform, which increased compulsory schooling from 7 to 10 years. We find a negative overall impact of...

Prior research suggests that high quality prekindergarten (pre-K) programs can promote school readiness and generate lifetime benefits for children. However, very little is known about how pre-K programs affect other family members. In this study, I examine the effects of the New York City pre-K...