Research

(Not) Thinking about the Future: Financial Awareness and Maternal Labor Supply

joint with Ana Costa-Ramón, Michaela Slotwinski, and Anne Brenøe (AEA RCT Registry 0010399)

Conditionally Accepted at Quarterly Journal of Economics

The “child penalty” significantly reduces women’s lifetime earnings and pension savings, but it remains unclear whether these gaps are the deliberate result of forward-looking decisions. This paper provides novel evidence on the role of information constraints in mothers’ labor supply decisions. We first document descriptively that mothers are largely inattentive to the long-term financial consequences of reduced hours. In a large-scale field experiment that combines rich survey and administrative data, we then provide mothers with objective, individualized information about the long-run costs of reduced labor supply. The treatment increases demand for financial information and future labor supply plans, in particular among women who underestimate the long-term costs. Leveraging linked employer administrative data one year post-intervention, we observe that mothers who underestimate the long-term costs increase their labor supply by 6 percent over the mean

Press coverage: Soziale Sicherheit

Quota vs. Quality? Long-Term Gains from an Unusual Gender Quota

joint with Ville Mankki

Revised & Resubmitted (2nd round) at American Economic Review

We evaluate equity-efficiency trade-offs from admissions quotas by examining effects on output once beneficiaries start producing in the relevant industry. In particular, we document the impact of abolishing a 40% quota for male primary school teachers on their pupils’ long-run outcomes. The quota had advantaged academically lower-scoring male university applicants, and its removal cut the share of men among new teachers by half. We combine this reform with the timing of union-mandated teacher retirements to isolate quasi-random variation in the local share of male quota teachers. Using comprehensive register data, we find that pupils exposed to a higher share of male quota teachers during primary school transition more smoothly to post-compulsory education and have higher educational attainment and labor force attachment at age 25. Pupils of both genders benefit similarly from exposure to male quota teachers. Evidence suggests that the quota improved the allocation of talent by mending imperfections in the unconstrained selection process.

Press coverage: The Economist: Quotas on it

Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award , Labor Economics

The Market for Part-Time Work and Maternal Participation in the Workforce

joint with Andrea Hofer and Andreas Beerli

Women are over-represented in industries that feature lower hours. This papers sheds light on the forces of labor supply and demand that give rise to this sorting. We examine an immigration reform that markedly increased the supply of full-time workers in a pre-defined set of border localities in Switzerland. Using social security registers and business census data covering the universe of establishments in a difference-in-differences design, we show that the reform leads to a drop in mothers’ labor force participation by 6\%. We provide evidence that mothers’ drop-out is primarily driven by changes in the structure of local labor markets with firms reducing their demand for part-time workers following the reform. The main channel of competition with immigrant labor in our setting thus manifests itself through the number of hours that workers are willing to supply. Our results are consistent with low(er) hours constituting a job-specific amenity that is costly for firms to provide.

Two Centuries of Tiebout: Residential Sorting and Fiscal Policy

joint with Cory Smith

(E-mail for draft)

Tiebout theory suggests that individuals sort into communities based on their preferences for public goods which in turn shape voting and public policy. We examine this mechanism in the context of nineteenth-century frontier settlement, using a natural experiment that introduced exogenous variation in initial levels of public school funding in Illinois townships. We exploit a federal policy that funded township schools using a fixed parcel of land within a standardized grid. Leveraging its arbitrary location, we use machine learning methods to convert its idiosyncratic geographic features into an exogenous predictor of initial school endowments. Townships with more valuable school lands attracted larger and more educated populations as early as 1860, with differences persisting for nearly two centuries. The paper will explore effects on subsequent schooling and public finance outcomes and mechanisms including substitution to private goods, urbanization, and education-driven outmigration.

Work in progress:

The Causal Impact of an Anti-Bullying Intervention on Children’s Development (AEA RCT Registry 0010879)

joint with Tabea Braun, Ana Costa-Ramón, Ana Rodríguez-González and Christina Salmivalli

We study the long-run effects of a large-scale school-based anti-bullying intervention. KiVa, first implemented in Finnish compulsory schools, aims to reduce bullying by shifting bystanders’ attitudes and behaviors. We link rich survey data from the original randomized controlled trial with comprehensive administrative records to track children’s educational and labor market outcomes. We find that treated students are more likely to enroll in academic high school and obtain a university degree. In early adulthood (ages 27-29), they also earn higher wages. We document reductions in bullying, particularly among boys, as well as improvements in school climate and student grades.

Divorce, Investment in the Labor Market and Household Income Pooling (RCT)

joint with Ana Costa-Ramón, Michaela Slotwinski, and Johannes Stupperich (Baseline and Follow Up completed. AEA RCT Registry 0012494)

We document several stylized facts about divorce perceptions and household specialization: First, women are over-optimistic about their own divorce likelihood and over-estimate claims to their partner’s income post-divorce, suggesting that current specialization patterns are not optimal. Second, lower own divorce expectations correlate with lower career aspirations. Third, women who have been exposed to divorce and its financial implications in their close environment are better informed and specialize less in home production. Based on these insights, we develop a testimonial intervention that emulates learning from a divorce experience and measure its impact on household bargaining and career investment.

Childcare Subsidies and Maternal Labor Supply: A Field Experiment

joint with Ana Costa-Ramón and Michaela Slotwinski (Baseline completed. AEA RCT Registry 0013838)