Current Projects

UNDER REVIEW

de Gendre, A. Lynch, J., Meunier, A., Pilkington, R., Schurer, S. (2023).  Child Health and Parental Responses to an Unconditional Cash Transfer at Birth. 

🏋️ Revise & Resubmit Review  of Economics & Statistics. 

Abstract. We estimate the impact on child health of the unanticipated introduction of the Australian Baby Bonus, a one-time $3,000 unconditional cash transfer given at birth. With population-level administrative data from South Australia and a regression discontinuity design, we find that eligible infants had fewer hospital presentations by age one for preventable, acute, and severe problems. Our auxiliary analyses using nationally-representative data suggest that parents increased spending on food and groceries, experienced less financial stress and hardship, and improved physical and mental health. We calculate that 34% of the payout was recouped within the first year due to lower healthcare costs.

Doyle, M.A., Guthridge, S., Schurer, S. (2025). Income and immunity: The consequences of a pre- and neo-natal income shock on childhood infection risk.

🏋️  Revise & Resubmit  Journal of Health Economics.

Abstract. We analyse the impact of a temporary reduction in income, occurring in utero and early infancy, on health in early childhood. We identify the income reduction through the gradual rollout of the so-called ‘income management’ policy in Aboriginal communities in Australia’s Northern Territory in 2007. This policy changed the delivery method of welfare payments but not their value – however, implementation challenges meant that many families did not receive their payments on time. Using linked administrative data, we find that children who were exposed to the policy rollout in utero or in their first three months of life (the ‘fourth trimester’) were at higher risk of severe infection requiring hospitalisation. They spent, on average, 4.7 more days in hospital between birth and their 8th birthday. Most of this impact is concentrated in hospitalisations for infection, which increased by 23 percent. These admissions are driven by a range of infection types: bacterial, viral and respiratory. We link our findings to the ‘immune programming hypothesis’, i.e. maternal stress and poor nutrition during key stages in immune system development can permanently weaken the child’s immune system. Our findings highlight the importance of attention to key phases in child development when designing policies that affect households’ financial resources, even temporarily.

Schurer, S., Tymula, A., Wang, W., Fuller, N.,  Caterson, I. (2025). Impatience and present bias do not predict weight loss in obesity: Evidence from lab-in-field and nationally representative data.

🏋️  Requested revision resubmitted  Health Economics

Abstract.  A substantial body of behavioral economics literature links obesity to time preferences, notably impatience—a time-consistent preference for earlier rewards—and present bias—the disproportionate overweighting of immediate payoffs that leads to dynamic inconsistency. Using clinically measured outcomes and incentivized preference data from 287 adults with obesity and pre-diabetes enrolled in a twelve-month randomized lifestyle-intervention trial, we find that neither impatience nor present bias predicts reductions in body fat or BMI. These findings are robust to alternative measurement strategies and are not explained by the impatience-related attrition that we uncover. To strengthen external validity, we replicate the null relationship using self-reported time preference measures in a nationally representative sample of 7,277 adults with overweight or obesity. As baseline impatience meaningfully reduces the likelihood of trial completion, we conclude that impatience affects adherence to medically recommended programs but does not directly impede weight-loss success among those who remain engaged. Interventions targeting impatience or self-control alone may therefore be insufficient to promote weight loss in clinical populations.

Guthridge, S., Schurer, S., Taylor, S. (2025). Minimum unit pricing, alcohol consumption and infant health: Evidence from the Alice Springs Liquor Supply Plan. October 2025 IZA DP No. 18201.

🔬Under review at Health Economics

Abstract. This paper examines the effect of alcohol minimum floor pricing on the demand for alcohol and infant health outcomes in high-risk populations. We develop a theoretical model showing that minimum floor prices may fail to improve welfare if heavy drinkers—who generate most negative externalities—are price inelastic. We test this prediction using the 2006 Alice Springs Liquor Supply Plan (LSP), which effectively doubled the minimum per-unit price of alcohol by restricting container sizes for fortified and other wines. Using a standard difference-in-differences framework, we estimate that the LSP reduced per-capita alcohol consumption by 19.6%, with a demand shift away from fortified and other wines to full-strength beer, yet demand remained inelastic ranging between –0.2 and -0.5. Consistent with the model’s predictions, we find no evidence that the policy improved birth outcomes among infants most at risk of alcohol-related harm; if anything, some indicators worsened. We discuss possible mechanisms, including substitution and income effects generated by the price increase. While acknowledging data limitations caused by the narrow policy window, the findings highlight the challenges of using price-based interventions to address externalities when harmful consumption is concentrated among price-insensitive consumers.

Farmer, A., Schurer, S. (2026). The intergenerational shadow of forced separation on Indigenous Australians. 

🔬 Under review at Journal of Population Economics

Abstract. The lives and cultural identities of Australia’s First Nations peoples have been profoundly shaped by discriminatory government policies since colonization. Among these was the policy of forced separation—a protectionist measure that allowed authorities to remove Indigenous children without demonstrating to a court that the child was neglected. During the protection and assimilation era (1910–1973), as many as 100,000 Indigenous children, mostly of mixed descent, were forcibly separated from their families. This paper studies the intergenerational consequences of forced separation on the human capital and labor market outcomes of Indigenous Australians. Using data from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS)—the only national dataset containing detailed information on forced separation and socioeconomic outcomes—we show that 11.2% of respondents had at least one parent who was forcibly separated, and 20% of these individuals were themselves removed. Evidence from NATSISS indicates that children of forcibly separated parents have higher educational attainment and hourly earnings but face greater risks of unemployment, poorer physical and mental health, and substance dependence. While forced separation may have increased Western-valued human capital among affected families, these gains did not translate into better health or financial benefits. The combined evidence on forced assimilation highlights its enduring harms and underscores the importance of strengthening protective factors for Indigenous well-being, including cultural identity.

Glozier, N., Naehrig, D. N., Schurer, S. (2026). Evaluating job satisfaction trade-offs general practitioners make by ensuring service accessibility: Longitudinal evidence from Australia’s mixed payment system. 

🔬 Under review at Labour Economics

Abstract. The design of primary care payment systems is central to sustaining the medical workforce and ensuring equitable access to care. Mixed payment models are widely used in universal healthcare systems, yet concerns about general practitioner (GP) income, workload, and job satisfaction persist across OECD countries. In Australia’s mixed payment system, many GPs improve access by accepting the lower government rebate as full payment (“bulk billing”), eliminating patient co-payments but reducing their own earnings potential. This study examines the job satisfaction consequences of this equity-efficiency trade-off. Using ten years of longitudinal data from the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) survey and panel data methods, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the share of bulk-billed patients is associated with a 0.054 standard deviation reduction in job satisfaction (SE = 0.009, p < 0.001). Shifting from charging co-payments for all patients to almost none corresponds to a decline in job satisfaction equivalent to approximately two-thirds of the job satisfaction gap between male and female GPs. No significant socio-demographic heterogeneity is observed, although negative effects are concentrated among high-intensity bulk-billing GPs. Increased working hours and poorer health are the key mediating factors. Further analyses show that the 2014 freeze of the government rebate—threatening the financial viability of low co-payment practices—led to an additional reduction in job satisfaction. These findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing access to care may be undermined by existing incentives and the associated job satisfaction trade-offs.

A previous version is available as Life Course Centre Working Paper Series, 2025-09. Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland. DOI: 10.14264/4ebb23a.

Guthridge, S., Schnepel, K., Schurer, S. (2025). The human capital benefits of neonatal care for moderate risk infants

🔬 Amost ready to be submitted - awaiting  final AEDC approval of revisions that were requested

Abstract. This paper documents significant human capital gains from a common intervention for moderate-risk newborns — Special Care Nurseries (SCN). Using instrumental variables that exploit clinical decision rules for SCN admission, and linked population data from Australia's Northern Territory, we find that SCN admission increases the probability of avoiding developmental vulnerability on five teacher-assessed domains at the start of full-time schooling by 19 percentage points — a 30% improvement over baseline — and raises scores of physical health and wellbeing by over one-third of a standard deviation. Mechanisms involve improved health trajectories: SCN reduces hospital admissions for infectious and respiratory illness and accidents, while enabling treatment of conditions requiring surgery. These gains are concentrated among boys, consistent with greater male vulnerability to in-utero health shocks. Given that SCN care typically adds only one week of hospital care, these findings suggest it may offer substantial long-term human capital returns at relatively low marginal cost.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Child wellbeing and development in the Northern Territory

Cameron, L., Darcy Coulter, Guyonne Kalb, Stefanie Schurer, Pat Dudgeon, Tanya Hirvonen, Ee Pin Chang, Rhema Vaithianathan, and Steven Guthridge, (2025). Learning about adversity in the lives of First Nations youth through the lens of high-quality linked administrative data. 

⏰Draft completed - Awaiting approval from data custodians. Please do not cite without permission from authors.

Abstract. This paper demonstrates that routinely collected and linked administrative data on education, health care use, and contact with the child protection and juvenile justice systems can be used to develop an informative indicator for risk of multi-dimensional adversity. We use data from a novel linked administrative data repository – the Child and Youth Development Research Program (CYDRP) – selecting all First Nations youth who were born between 2000 and 2006 and are observed living in Australia’s Northern Territory (N=9,869). We test a simple index of adversity that counts up to seven exposures to events with assumed negative consequences (low school attendance and achievement, diagnoses of mental health and substance use disorders, child protection notifications and maltreatment substantiations, and criminal charges) between ages 12 and 18. We demonstrate that this index is strongly predictive of suicide and suicide attempts, an important public policy challenge. We identify substantial variation in adversity experienced by individuals across communities, varying from an average of two to four adversities in remote communities, and slightly lower overall levels in more urban communities. Importantly, more than one in two children have low levels of adversity. Family-fixed factors explain 7.5 times more of the variation in adversity than community-fixed factors. This suggests that family-specific policy initiatives are likely to be more effective than broader programs targeting communities.

Farmer, A., Jayasinghe, M., Mitrou, F., Schurer, S., Shaw, R., Toka, C., Wardle, I. (2025). Breaking the Great Australian Silence: Forced Removal Eroded Trust of the Stolen Generations.   

✍️ Draft in process.

Abstract. Trust lies at the heart of all human interactions. We examined the long-term mistrust and distress consequences of forced separation on the survivors of the Stolen Generations among Australia's First Nations people. Using data from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) and multivariate regression modelling, we find that the Stolen Generations and their children, relative to First Nations peoples without immediate family forced separation experience, exhibit significantly higher levels of mistrust, especially toward hospital staff and police, regardless of gender or geography. Separation experiences that occurred post the protection and assimilation era (> 1973), is also significantly associated with mistrust. The mistrust effects are almost twice as large as those identified for the long-term trust consequences of exposure to slavery on the African continent. Despite assimilation goals and effective loss of the ability to speak an Indigenous language, the Stolen Generations and their descendants maintain significantly stronger cultural connections, highlighting the importance of their cultural identity of choice. The federal and state governments must address the harms of past policies and current practices in child protection, which remove Aboriginal children at a 10 times greater rate than non-Aboriginal children, perpetuating mistrust and distress imposed on families. Our findings emphasise the urgency for governments to rebuild trust and repair community resilience.

Child protection in NSW

Schurer, S., Wright, A. C., Cashmore, J., Mallos, A., Luu, B., Wardle, I. (2025). Youth who go missing from care: Characteristics and risk profiles. 

🐾 Currently in print process as Australian Public Policy Insights Paper. Please do not cite without permission from authors.

Abstract. Youth who go missing from out-of-home care represent a small but highly vulnerable group within child protection systems, yet empirical evidence on their trajectories remains limited. This paper examines the characteristics, placement experiences, and service system contact of children and young people in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, who exited out-of-home care recorded as ‘missing’. Using a novel linked administrative dataset drawn from the NSW Human Services Dataset and linked across multiple government systems, we analyse 1,684 care episodes involving 1,149 unique children between 2000 and 2019. Although exits recorded as missing account for only 0.5% of all care episodes, the findings reveal marked concentration of risk. Children who went missing were more likely to enter care at older ages, experience substantially greater placement instability, and be placed in residential, alternative, or independent living arrangements rather than foster or kinship care. Youth refuges were associated with the highest relative risk of missing exits. Most missing events occurred during adolescence, with the average exit age nearly seven years older than for children who never went missing. Linkage to justice, health, housing, police, and education records demonstrates that young people who go missing from care are already highly visible across service systems prior to their exit, and that risk intensifies following a missing episode. Compared with peers who never exit care as missing, these children experience significantly higher contact with juvenile and adult justice systems, police, homelessness services, and victimisation. While most re-enter care—often within three months—nearly one quarter do not, yet almost all appear in other government systems shortly after going missing. Cluster analysis identifies a dominant post-missing profile characterised by complex, overlapping needs spanning safety, justice involvement, housing insecurity, and health. Together, the findings highlight missing from care as a critical system failure point and underscore the need for earlier intervention, greater placement stability, and cross-system responses to prevent harm and disengagement among at-risk youth.

Schurer, S., Wright, A., Cashmore, J., MacMillan, E., Luu, B., Wardle, I. (2025). The cooling down effect of fmily-led decision making: Behavioural responses to small but scalable interventions in the child protection system. 

✍️ Draft in process.

Abstract.  We study the cost effectiveness of the Family Group Conference (FGC), a small but potentially scalable intervention to boost family-led decision making that has been rolled out in stages in New South Wales’ child protection system since 2017. Using linked unit-record data on program receipt and child protection outcomes, we isolate the causal impact of the program by comparing outcomes before and after referral to the FGC, using families who will receive the FGC in the future as controls. Detailed analyses of the pre-referral trend in system contact show that families were referred into the program at the height of family conflict, as measured by the risk of contact with the system. We control for this differential pre-referral trend with state-of-the-art difference-in-differences methods and careful construction of cohort controls. We find that the FGC significantly reduced the risk of contact with the system and of harm substantiation in the first 12 months of the program, the period of follow-up for which we have reliable data. Qualitative evidence from family and facilitator interviews is used to explain the positive effects of the program. Although program facilitation and administration cost per family reach almost A$8,000 (> EUR4,500), the FGC has strong potential to be cost effective by taking the heat out of vulnerable families when they most need support.

Schurer, S., Wright, A.C., Ciftci, S., Luu, B., Pope, S., Pritchard, B., O’Flaherty, L., Witbreuk, N. & Kendall, Z. (2025). Understanding the child safety consequences of an early investment program: Evidence from the New South Wales Family Connect Service.

✍️ Draft in process.

Miscellaneous

de Gendre, A., Schurer, S., Zhang, A. (2021). Two decades of welfare reforms in Australia How did they affect single mothers and their children? 

Available as IZA Discussion Paper Nr. 14752 (27 September 2021).