Emily A. Beam

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Vermont and research fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). I previously worked as a visiting assistant professor at the National University of Singapore. I received a Ph.D in economics and public policy from the University of Michigan in 2013 and a B.S. in economics, mathematics, and Spanish from the University of Michigan in 2006.

My research interests are in labor and development economics, with a particular focus on employment and education policy, migration, fertility and marriage, and the role of incomplete information and behavioral biases on individual decision-making. I am currently conducting impact evaluations of summer employment and teacher placement programs in the Philippines, as well as field experiments on the relative returns to education and experience among young job-seekers.

Curriculum Vitae (March 2021)

Publications:

• “The Influence of Hidden Researcher Decisions in Applied Microeconomics” with Nick Huntington-Klein, Andreu Arenas, Marco Bertoni, Jeffrey R. Bloem, Pralhad Burli, Naibin Chen, Paul Greico, Godwin Ekpe, Todd Pugatch, Martin Saavedra, Yaniv Stopnitzky. Forthcoming at Economic Inquiry. (IZA Discussion Paper No. 13233)

• Leveraging Outside Readings and Low-Stakes Writing Assignments to Promote Student Engagement in an Economic Development Course. February 2021. Forthcoming at the Journal of Economic Education.

• Search Costs and the Determinants of Job Search. Labour Economics, Vol 69, April 2021. (IZA Discussion Paper No. 13793.)

• Does Younger Age at Marriage Affect Divorce? Evidence from Executive Order 11241 and the 'Midnight Marriages', with Martha Bailey and Anna Wentz. May 2019. Accepted at Economic Inquiry

• Superstition, Fertility, and Inter-ethnic Spillovers: Evidence from Peninsular Malaysia, with Slesh A. Shrestha, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol 69, No. 1, September 2020.

• The Relative Returns to Education, Experience, and Attractiveness for Young Workers, with Joshua Hyman and Caroline Theoharides, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol 68 No 2, January 2020, p391-428.

• Do Job Fairs Matter? Experimental Evidence from the Philippines. Journal of Development Economics, Vol 120, May 2016, p32-40.

• Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines, with David McKenzie and Dean Yang, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol 64, No. 2, January 2016.

Working Papers:

• "Do Ex Ante Incentives Generate Endowment Effects or Trust? Evidence from a Randomised Field Experiment Promoting Preventive Health Care," with Yusufcan Masatioglu, Tara Watson, and Dean Yang. January 2021. Revise and resubmit at Economic Inquiry

• "The Impact of Summer Employment for Low-Income Youth: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines," with Stella Quimbo. October 2019. Revise and resubmit at the Review of Economics and Statistics. 3ie Policy Brief and 3ie Report.

Work in Progress:

• “Impact Evaluation of the DOLE Pilot Graduation Program,” with Lasse Brune, Dean Karlan, Yasu Sawada, and Christopher Udry.

• “Education and Skills for Out-of-School Children in Bangladesh,” with Priya Mukherjee.

• "Take-Up, Use, and Effectiveness of Remote Learning Technologies," with Priya Mukherjee and Laia Navarro-Sola.

• "Birth Timing and the Agricultural Season" with Joshua Merfeld.