Publications
Publications
Embedded Files
Edited Volumes
Edited Volumes
(coedited with Leah Boustan and William J. Collins). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2025.
A Half Century of Change in the Lives of American Women
(coedited with Tom DiPrete). Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2016.A Half Century of Change in the Lives of American Women
✵ Featured on FiveThirtyEight.com.
Legacies of the War on Poverty
(coedited with Sheldon Danziger). New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013.Legacies of the War on Poverty
✵ Read my piece in Room for Debate in the New York Times and Op Ed in the Huffington Post.
✵ Cited by The Nation, the New York Times, Media Matters, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Education Week's Timeline: The War on Poverty , CNN, and New Republic. Discussed on NPR's Tell Me More.
✵ Reviewed in Journal of Economic Literature (on pages 126-27), the New York Review of Books (Part I and Part II).
Journal Articles
(students, former students, or advisees are underlined) Journal Articles
The Economics of Childbearing: Trends, Progress, and Challenges
2025, Annual Review of Economics. NBER Working Paper [ungated version]How the 1963 Equal Pay Act and 1964 Civil Rights Act Shaped the U.S. Gender Gap
(with Thomas Helgerman and Bryan Stuart), 2024, Quarterly Journal of Economics, NBER Working Paper, IZA Working Paper. Online Appendix.✵ Featured in the NBER Digest October 2023
✵ Our post on the Broadstreet Blog
(with Tanya Byker, Elena Patel, and Shanti Ramnath), 2025, American Economic Journal: Policy 17 (1): 401-31 . Online Appendix. Replication package. [ungated version]✵ Featured in many news outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and on the Washington Center of Equitable Growth blog
✵ Unpublished version using a differences-in-differences design issued as NBER Working Paper and CEPR Working Paper.
Is the Social Safety Net a Long-Term Investment? Large-Scale Evidence from the Food Stamps Program
(with Hilary Hoynes, Maya Rossin-Slater, and Reed Walker), 2024, Review of Economic Studies. NBER Working Paper. [ungated version]✵ See also NBER Digest Aug 2020
✵ Replication package is here.
Increasing Financial Access to Contraception for Low-Income Americans
2024, Hamilton Policy Brief. (with Peter Z. Lin), in M. Bailey, L. Boustan, and W. Collins (eds.), The Economic History of American Inequality: New Evidence and Perspectives, 2025.The Effects of the Great Depression on Children's Intergenerational Mobility
(with Peter Z. Lin, A.R. Shariq Mohammed, and Alexa Prettyman), January 2024, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 10(1): 32–56.Who is Financially Constrained in Their Choice of Contraception? Lessons from M-CARES
(with Lea Bart, Alexa Prettyman, Vanessa Wanner Lang, and Vanessa Dalton). 2024, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 114: 442-448.The COVID-19 Baby Bump in the United States
(with Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt), 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (3). See longer NBER Working Paper 30569.✵ Featured in the Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Atlantic (11/2/2022 and 11/28/2022), NPR's Marketplace, CNN, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Time, Axios, and Marketwatch
✵ Replication package is here.
(with Peter Lin, A.R. Shariq Mohammed, Paul Mohnen, Jared Murray, Mengying Zhang, and Alexa Prettyman), 2023, Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 56 (3): 138-159. Published version here.Breathing New Life into Death Certificates: Extracting Cause of Death from Handwritten Records
(with Susan Leonard, Joseph Price, Logan Spector, Evan Roberts, and Mengying Zhang), 2023, Explorations in Economic History 87. SSRN Working Paper.Journal of Monetary Economics, 2022.
(with Lea Bart and Vanessa Lang), Population Research and Policy Review, 2022. NBER Working Paper, PMC8888131✵ See write up in the July 2022 NBER Digest and at MLIVE and UCLA Anderson Review
"Prep School for Poor Kids": The Long-Run Impact of Head Start on Human Capital and Productivity
(with Shuqiao Sun and Brenden Timpe), 2021, American Economic Review 111(12): 3963-4001. NBER Working Paper. HCEO Working Paper. Online Appendix.✵ See write up in the April 2021 NBER Digest , May 2021 in the Anderson Review, and June 2021 in Vox.(with John DiNardo and Bryan Stuart), 2021 Journal of Labor Economics 39 (S2): S329-S367. NBER Working Paper. Online Appendix.✵ Featured on NPR, January 29, 2021, “Should We Raise the Minimum Wage”Changes in the U.S. Gender Gap in Wages in the 1960s
(with Thomas Helgerman and Bryan Stuart), 2021 American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 111: 143-48.(with Emily Beam and Anna Wentz), 2021, Economic Inquiry. PMC8174648Equal Opportunities Begin with Contraception
2020 Nature.(with Vanessa K. Dalton, Michelle Moniz, Lindsay K. Admon, Giselle Kolenic, Anca Tilea, and Mark Fendrick ), 2020 JAMA Netw. Open 3 (11):e2024398 . PMC7648257The Demographic Effects of Dodging the Vietnam Draft
(with Eric Chyn), 2020, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 110: 220-225. PMC8095165How Well Do Automated Methods Linking Perform? Evidence from U.S. Historical Data
(with Connor Cole, Morgan Henderson and Catherine Massey), 2020, Journal of Economic Literature 58(4):997-1044. NBER Working Paper 24019. Online Appendix. PMC8294155✵ This paper was discussed in my NBER Summer Institute Methods Lecture on Data Linking, 7/11/2017.
✵ Stata ado-file that implements most algorithms in the paper.
(with Connor Cole and Catherine Massey), 2020, Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 53 (2): 80-93. Online Appendix. PMC7523567 (with Zoë McLaren and Olga Malkova), 2018, Journal of Human Resources 54 (4): 825-856. NBER Working Paper 23971, Census Working Paper, HCEO Working Paper, PMCID: PMC6876122. Online Appendix.✵ HCEO featured this paper in a research spotlight; the Center for Poverty Research featured it in a Policy Brief; and London School of Economics blogged about it
✵ Cited in The Atlantic and Nature and discussed in an interview with Mic.
U.S. Fertility Rates and Childbearing, 1800-2010
(with Brad J. Hershbein). In L. Cain, P. Fishback and P.W. Rhode (eds.), Oxford Handbook of American Economic History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2018).Access and Use of Contraception and Its Effects on Women’s Outcomes in the U.S.
(with Jason Lindo). In L. Argys, S. Averett, and S. Hoffman (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Women and the Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, May 2018). NBER Working Paper 23465.✵ Cited in Salon.
(with Tom A. DiPrete). In M.J. Bailey and T.A. DiPrete (eds.), Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2016). PMC5115603✵ Featured on FiveThirtyEight.com.
Hope for America’s Next Generation
(with Brenden Timpe). Science 352 (6286), May 2016. PMCID: PMC4900691. Summary here.(with Andrew Goodman-Bacon), American Economic Review, March 2015: 1067-1104. PMCID: PMC4436657✵ Executive summary here
✵ Read our blog in the London School of Economics and Political Science.
(with Melanie Guldi and Brad J. Hershbein). In Boustan, Frydman, and Margo (eds.), Human Capital and History: The American Record (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014).✵ Featured in a Brookings Memo.
(with Nicolas J. Duquette), Journal of Economic History, June 2014: 351-388. PMCID: PMC4266933. Download Data Appendix. Download data and replication file.✵ 2014 Arthur H. Cole Prize for best article published in the Journal of Economic History
Do Family Planning Programs Decrease Poverty? Evidence from Public Census Data
(with Olga Malkova and Johannes Norling), CESifo Economic Studies, March 2014. PMCID: PMC4206087.Introduction: Legacies of the War on Poverty
(with Sheldon Danziger). In M.J. Bailey and S. Danziger (eds.) Legacies of the War on Poverty. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013).Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2013: 341-409. PMCID: PMC4203450.✵ Featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Freakonomics, Business Insider (also posted on the San Francisco Chronicle), Think Progress, and Bustle.
Recent Evidence on the Broad Benefits of Reproductive Health Policy
(with Melanie Guldi and Brad J. Hershbein), Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 32 (4), July 2013: 888-896. PMCID: PMC4075263Further Evidence on the Internal Validity of the Early Legal Access Research Design
(with Melanie Guldi and Brad J. Hershbein), Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 32 (4), July 2013: 899-904. PMCID: PMC4075275The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception, Fertility Timing and the Gender Gap in Wages
(with Brad J. Hershbein and Amalia Miller), American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 4 (3), 2012: 225-54. PMCID: PMC3684076✵ Winner of the 2013 IZA Young Labor Economist Award.
✵ Cited in the New York Times on 3/6/2012 and 3/8/2018, US News, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, the Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and Slate on 3/29/2012 and 11/7/2012.
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 4 (2), April 2012: 62-97. PMCID: PMC3348617.✵ Article in U-Michigan's Fall 2012 LSA Magazine.
✵ Featured on BigThink.com and Nature
✵ Replication package is here.
Inequality in Postsecondary Education
(with Susan Dynarski). In G.J. Duncan and R.J. Murnane (eds.), Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances. (Russell Sage: New York, New York, September 2011).✵ Featured in the May 2012 NBER Digest.
✵ Download Bailey_Dynarski_2011.zip for data and Stata dofiles to replicate these findings.
✵ Cited in the New York Times on 9/10/2014, 6/17/2014, 4/27/2013, 2/22/2012, 2/9/2012, 11/24/2011, and 11/16/2011; CNN Money, Inside Higher Ed, Education Week, and Bloomberg on 3/5/2013 and 4/11/2012.
(with William J. Collins), American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 3 (2), April 2011: 189-217.✵ Co-winner of the 2011 Best Published Work using IPUMS-USA data.
Momma’s Got the Pill: How Anthony Comstock and Griswold v. Connecticut Shaped U.S Childbearing
American Economic Review 100 (1), March 2010: 98-129. NBER Working Paper 14675.✵ Podcast about Estelle Griswold and the Griswold decision
✵ Winner of the CESifo Distinguished Research Affiliate Award for Best Paper by an Economist under 35, May 2009.
✵ Additional estimates, January 2009
✵ Details on legal coding (with Allie Davido), January 2009. Scans of Statues (broken into groups by states):
✵ AL-AZ, AR-CT, DE-GA, HI-IN, IA-ME, MD-MN, MS-MT, ND-OR, NE-NV, NH-NC, PA-TN, TX-WY
✵ Read my op-ed in The Atlantic.
The Wage Gains of African-American Women in the 1940s
(with William J. Collins), Journal of Economic History 66 (3), September 2006. NBER Working Paper 10621.Laws and Policies Governing Contraceptive Access, 1960-1980
(with Melanie Guldi, Allison Davido, and Erin Buzuvis), August 2011.More Power to the Pill: The Impact of Contraceptive Freedom on Women’s Lifecycle Labor Supply
Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 (1), February 2006: 289-320. Update: “Erratum and Addendum,” posted September 2009.✵ Cited in the New York Times.
Databases
Databases
LIFE-M: The Longitudinal Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-database
(with Peter Z. Lin, Shariq Mohammed, Paul Mohnen, Jared Murray, Mengying Zhang, and Alexa Prettyman), Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-02-14. https://doi.org/10.3886/E155186 (with Susan H. Leonard, Joseph Price, Evan Roberts, Logan Spector, and Mengying Zhang). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-03-15. https://doi.org/10.3886/E149841Summary of Procedure to Match NUMIDENT Place of Birth County to GNIS Places
(with Evan Taylor and Bryan Stuart). CES Technical Notes Series, 2016.Database available in the RDC with proper clearance. Files and the related internal technical memo are posted under the 1284 project. The memo is: "2_Technical Memorandum..." and the code is the folder "2_Programs to Match Numident." You'll also need two more files: (1) GNIS_census_codes2.dta comes from https://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/download_data.htm - see NationalFedCodes at the bottom (we used one from March 2015). The USGS does update these, and it is possible that a different name file would lead to different output from the algorithm. (2) COUNTYXWALK_2012.dta is the hand matches of NUMIDENT strings to counties done by Isen, Rossin-Slater, and Walker (2017). We obtained this file in the RDC, and it has not undergone disclosure review (nor could it). This file is only necessary to generate a subset of the hand matches in our algorithm, and the inability to construct these matches shouldn't have a material effect, because they are quite rare. Request access from the program authors.
US County-Level Natality and Mortality Data, 1915-2007
(with Karen Clay, Price Fishback, Michael Haines, Shawn Kantor, Edson Severnini, and Anna Wentz), Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2018-05-02. https://doi.org/10.3886/E100229V4
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