Research
Peer-reviewed published papers
16. Jessen, J., Kuehnle, D. Wagner, M. Long-run effects of earlier voting eligibility on turnout and political involvement. Forthcoming in Journal of Politics. This version: March 2022. [Paper]
15. Kuehnle, D., Johnson, G., Tseng, Y.P. Making it home? Evidence on the long-run impact of an intensive support program for the chronically homeless. Online first at Journal of Urban Economics. [Working Paper Version]. Media: The Guardian.
14. Collischon, M., Kuehnle, D., Oberfichtner, M. Who benefits from cash-for-care? The effects of a home care subsidy on maternal employment, childcare choices, and children's development. Online first at Journal of Human Resources.
13. Karlsson , M., Kuehnle, D., Prodromidis, N. (2021). 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic in Economic History. Accepted for publication, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance.
12. Kuehnle D., Oberfichtner, M., Ostermann, K. (2021) Revisiting Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households -- A cautionary tale on the potential pitfalls of density estimators. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 1-9. [Link]
11. Kuehnle D., Oberfichtner, M. (2020). Does early child care attendance influence children's cognitive and non-cognitive skill development? Demography, 57(1): 61–98. [Link]
10. Kuehnle D. (2019). How effective are pictorial warnings on tobacco products? New evidence on smoking behaviour using Australian panel data. Journal of Health Economics, 67: 102215. [Link]
9. Huebener M., Kuehnle D., Spiess K. (2019). Paid Parental Leave and Child Development: Evidence from the 2007 German Parental Benefit Reform and Administrative Data. Labour Economics, 61: 101754. [Link]
8. Cygan-Rehm, K., Kuehnle, D., Riphahn, R. (2018). Paid parental leave and families' living arrangements. Labour Economics, 53: 182-197. [Link]
7. Kalb, G., Kuehnle, D., Cheng, T., Scott, T., Jeon, S. (2018). What factors affect doctors' hours decisions: Comparing structural discrete choice and reduced-form approaches. Health Economics. 27(2): e101-e119.
6. Cygan-Rehm K, Kuehnle D, Oberfichtner M . (2017). Bounding the causal effect of unemploymenton mental health: Nonparametric evidence from four countries. Health Economics. 26(12): 1844-1861.
5. Broadway, B., Kalb, G., Kuehnle, D. Maeder, M. (2017). Paid parental leave and child health in Australia. Economic Record. 93(301): 214-237.
4. Kuehnle D. and Wunder C. (2017). "The effects of smoking bans on self-assessed health: Evidence from Germany". Health Economics. 26(3): 321-337.
3. Kuehnle D. and Wunder C. (2016). "Using the life satisfaction approach to value daylight savings time transitions. Evidence from Britain and Germany". Journal of Happiness Studies. 17(6): 2293-2323.
2. Schurer, S., Kuehnle, D., Scott, A., Cheng, T. (2016). A man's blessing or a woman's curse? The Family-earnings gap of doctors. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society. 55(3): 385-414
1. Kuehnle D. (2014). "The effect of family income on child health in the UK". Journal of Health Economics, 36:137-150.
Work in progress (selection)
Parental Leave, Worker Substitutability, and Firm’s Employment (with Mathias Huebener, Jonas Jessen and Michael Oberfichtner) Latest version: IZA Discussion Paper 16843, March 2024. Revisions resubmitted. The Economic Journal.
Abstract: Motherhood and parental leave are frequent causes of worker absences and employment interruptions, yet we know little about their effects on firms. Based on linked employer-employee data from Germany, we examine how parental leave absences affect small- and medium-sized firms. We show that they anticipate the absence with replacement hirings in the six months before childbirth. A 2007 parental leave reform extending leave absences reduces firm-level employment and total wages in the first year after childbirth, driven by firms with few internal substitutes for the absent mother. However, we do not find longer-term effects on firms' employment, wage-bill, or likelihood to shut down. We find that the reform increases replacement hirings, but firms directly affected do not respond to longer expected absences of mothers by subsequently hiring fewer young women. Overall, our findings show that extended parental leave does not have a lasting impact on firms when these can anticipate the absences.
School Closures, Mortality, and Human Capital: Evidence from the Universe of Closures during the 1918 Pandemic in Sweden (joint with Christian M. Dahl, Martin Karlsson, Casper Worm Hansen, Peter Sandholt Jensen) CEPR Working Paper 18399. submitted
Abstract: This study examines the impact of primary-school closures during the 1918 Pandemic in Sweden on mortality and long-term outcomes of school children. Using the universe of death certificates from 1914-1920 and newly-collected data on school closures across 2,100 districts, our high-frequency event studies at weekly and daily intervals show that schools closed due to local surges in influenza deaths. Despite the short duration of closures, faster implementation of school closures significantly reduced peak mortality rates among primary-aged individuals. Our long-run analysis of approximately 100,000 children per grade shows precisely estimated, minor, and mostly insignificant effects on longevity, employment, and income.
Long-Run Employment Effects of Paid Parental Leave and Paternity Leave. (with Max Kunaschk and Michael Oberfichtner). Inactive.
Abstract: We examine the long-run effects of parenthood and of a substantial paid parental leave reform on parents' employment probability. Using administrative data from Germany, we document substantial child penalties in employment for women after childbirth up to seven years after childbirth, but a much smaller child penalty in East compared to West Germany. Men's employment probability in both parts of the country is largely unaffected by parenthood. We show that the parental leave reform had similar short-run effects for women and only slightly different effects for men. We find no meaningful long-run effects on either partner's employment probability. Despite increased take-up of parental leave after the reform, we find no evidence that fathers' parental leave taking affects parents' long-run labor market outcomes. Although social norms differ between East and West Germany, the reform effects are similar, suggesting that gender norms are not a major moderator of the effects.