Research

You can see my Curriculum Vitae here

Peer-Reviewed Publications

The Effect of Spouses’ Relative Education on Household Time Allocation. Southern Economic Journal (2023), 89(3), 788-829.

Working Papers

An Unintended Effect of School Entrance Age: Pushing Children Ahead through Private School (Under Review)

In the United States (US), most children must be five years old by September to start public kindergarten. However, private schools provide an alternative option as they are not bound by state cutoffs. Consequently, the children’s birth date might affect their probability of attending a private school. To investigate this, I analyze data from the American Community Survey and explore the relationship between the children’s birth quarter and their likelihood of attending private school. The analysis reveals that children born in July to September and October to December are more likely to attend private kindergarten compared to those born between April and June. However, this effect does not persist at higher grade levels. These findings suggest that when parents are influenced by the entrance age cutoff, they may use private schools to initiate their children’s formal education and later transition them to public school as they advance through the K-12 system.

The Skills of Rich and Poor Country Workers, with David Slichter and Daniela Monge (Under Review)

What specific types of skills – e.g., scientific knowledge, math, or social skills – do workers raised in rich countries have that workers from poor countries lack? We investigate using information on occupation choices of immigrants. To an approximation, rich country workers are better at exactly those skills which are well-compensated in the U.S. economy, and in proportion to how well-compensated those skills are. Specifically, this means that rich country workers have the greatest advantages in skills related to the ability to generate new ideas (e.g., creativity and critical thinking), and that rich country workers’ skills align especially closely with the skills used in management occupations. Lastly, we find that workers from rich countries are more varied in their skills (e.g., what one Canadian is good at is different from what another Canadian is). These findings do not appear to be accounted for by the non-randomness of immigration or mismeasurement of skills. Our results are consistent with the view that international differences in skills arise primarily in response to differences in demand for skills.

The Effect of Fertility on Women’s Labor Supply: Heterogeneity by Gender Norms

This paper asks whether the effect of fertility on women’s labor supply depends on gender norms. To separate the role of gender norms from institutional features, I compare the labor supply response to children among women living in the United States but born in different countries. Hence, I compare native to immigrant women and, within immigrants, those born in less and more gender-egalitarian countries. I instrument for the variable of interest, having more than two children, with the sex composition of the first two children. The findings show that women from all countries reduce employment due to having more than two children. Yet, this effect is substantially larger for women born in less gender-egalitarian countries. In particular, women from countries with the least egalitarian gender norms have an employment response three times larger than the employment response of natives. Thus, the negative effect of fertility on the labor supply decreases with gender egalitarianism.

Work in Progress

  • “The Effect of Migration Laws on the Marriage Market” (with Xin Liang and Leila Salarpour Goodarzi)

  • “The Effect of Countries’ Technology and Productivity on Human Capital” (with David Slichter)

  • “School Spending and School Choices: Private Schools”

  • “The Intergenerational Effect of Vietnam-Era Military Service: School Investment and Private School”

  • “Unintended Consequence of Government Job Age Cutoff Policy” (with Md Shahadath Hossain)

  • “The Income-Amenities Occupation Trade-off: What Workers Gain When They Give up Wages?” (with David Slichter)