Estimating causal effects of parental characteristics on determinants of child outcomes is complicated due to endogeneity problems. Utilizing matched mother-child data from National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, this paper integrates an orthogonalization technique to 2SLS-IV regressions. The...

We study the effect of mothers' smoking during pregnancy on children's body weight outcomes during pre-school ages using a nationally representative sample of children surveyed in NLSY79 Children and Young Adults. Exploiting 'within mother and across pregnancies' variation in smoking behavior,...

Citing consumer protection concerns, New Hampshire – along with three other states – recently banned payday lending by implementing an APR cap on small loans. New Hampshire presents a compelling quasi-experiment: its neighbors already had a payday loan ban inplace. Hence, New Hampshire...

This paper is an initial exploration of what we can learn regarding the drivers of the gender pay gap in New Zealand from combining administrative wage data, birth records, and survey data on hours worked and earnings. Our particular focus is the role of parenthood penalties in this pay gap. In...