We provide the first evidence on sexual orientation and earnings in New Zealand (NZ), one of the most inclusive countries for LGBTQ+ people in the world. We use confidential linked census-tax data to compare outcomes for individuals in same-sex couples versus different-sex couples. We find...

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 establishes that ethnicity matters for criminal behavior. Exploiting the gender of the first-born child on fathers’ conviction rates, this is the first paper to document behavioral differences in parental criminality between ethnic groups. Based on uniquely detailed administrative...

We study the relationship between financial well-being and sexual orientation in the United States using Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) data for 2019-2022. We document that people who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual (or LGB) have significantly more difficulty managing...

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...

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...