Publications:

[1] Kong, Nancy, Lars Osberg, and Weina Zhou. "The shattered “Iron Rice Bowl”: Intergenerational effects of Chinese State-Owned Enterprise reform." Journal of Health Economics 67 (102220).

Abstract: Reform of the Chinese State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) sector in the late 1990s triggered massive layoffs (34 million employees) and marked the end of the “Iron Rice Bowl” guarantee of employment security for the remaining 67 million workers. An expanding international literature has documented the adverse health impacts of economic insecurity on adults, but has typically neglected children. This paper uses the natural experiment of SOE reform to explore the causal relationship between increased parental economic insecurity and children’s BMI Z-score. Using province year-level layoff rates and income loss from the layoffs, we estimate a generalised difference-in-differences model with individual fixed effects and year fixed effects. For a medium-build 10-year-old boy, a median treatment effect implies a gain of 1.8 kg and a 2.2-percentage-point increase in the overweight rate due to the reform. The weight gain for boys whose SOE parents kept their jobs indicates the importance of anxiety about potential losses, as well as the experience of actual loss. Unconditional quantile regressions suggest that boys who are heavier are more likely to gain weight. Girls are not significantly affected. Intergenerational effects therefore increase the estimated public health costs of greater economic insecurity.

[2] Kong, Nancy and Weina Zhou. (2021). "The curse of modernization? Western fast food and Chinese children's weight." Health Economics, 30(10) 2345-2366. (Working paper version)

Abstract: The income-adjusted price of fast food in China is five times more than in the US, yet we show that the introduction of Western fast-food restaurants to China still leads to significant weight gain in children. Using the community-year-level presence of Western fast-food outlets, difference-in-differences estimations find a 4.8-percentage-point increase in the prevalence of overweight/obese children after controlling for child and year fixed effects. The effect decreases at a distance of 3 to 4 km from a fast-food restaurant, and we find no further weight gain 2 years after the restaurant's introduction. The underweight rate is not affected by fast food introduction. The increase in fat share of energy intake serves as the channel for weight gain. Children in high-income families, younger than 11 years, and girls are more affected than other Chinese children.

[3] Kong, Nancy, Shelley Phipps, and Barry Watson. "Parental economic insecurity and child health." Economics and Human Biology 43(101068). (Working paper version) 

Abstract:  We explore the effects of parental economic insecurity on their children’s hyperactivity and anxiety. Our central argument is that even after controlling for current family income and employment status, parents may have legitimate feelings of economic insecurity, and these may be detrimental for their children. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth indicate that the health of 2- to 5-year-old children is worse when parents report themselves to be “worried about having enough money to support the family.” In particular, boys are more hyperactive and girls are more anxious when parents feel less economically secure. Changes in parenting styles appear to be channels through which parental economic insecurity affects their children. 

[4] Kong, N., Dulleck, U., Jaffe, A. B., Sun, S., & Vajjala, S. (2023). Linguistic metrics for patent disclosure: Evidence from university versus corporate patents. Research Policy, 52(2), 104670. (Working paper version NBER Working Paper No. 27803) 

Abstract: Encouraging inventors to disclose new inventions is an important economic justification for the patent system, yet the technical information contained in patent applications is often inadequate and unclear. This paper proposes a novel approach to measure disclosure in patent applications using algorithms from computational linguistics. Borrowing methods from the literature on second language acquisition, we analyze core linguistic features of 40,949 U.S. applications in three patent categories related to nanotechnology, batteries, and electricity from 2000 to 2019. Relying on the expectation that universities have more incentives to disclose their inventions than corporations for either incentive reasons or for different source documents that patent attorneys can draw on, we confirm the relevance and usefulness of the linguistic measures by showing that university patents are more readable. Combining the multiple measures using principal component analysis, we find that the gap in disclosure is 0.4 SD, with a wider gap between top applicants. Our results do not change after accounting for the heterogeneity of inventions by controlling for cited-patent fixed effects. We also explore whether one pathway by which corporate patents become less readable is use of multiple examples to mask the “best mode” of inventions. By confirming that computational linguistic measures are useful indicators of readability of patents, we suggest that the disclosure function of patents can be explored empirically in a way that has not previously been feasible. 

[5] Cobb-Clark, Deborah, Nancy Kong, and Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch "The stability of self-control in a population-representative study" Journal of Economic Psychology  102599. (Working paper version IZA DP No. 14976)

We investigate the stability of self-control at the population level. Analyzing repeated Brief Self-Control Scale scores, we demonstrate that self-control exhibits a high degree of mean-level, rank-order, and individual-level stability over the medium term. Changes in self-control are not associated with major life events, nor are they economically important. The stability of self-control is particularly striking given our study period (2017-2020) spans the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[6] Kong, Nancy, Jack Lam "Physical isolation and loneliness: Evidence from COVID lockdowns in Australia." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (forthcoming)

Loneliness contributes to mortality risk, comparable to the risks associated with smoking and obesity, although the causal determinants of loneliness remain less clear. This paper leverages mandatory stay-at-home orders in Australia as a natural experiment and employs data from a panel study to investigate the causal link between physical isolation and loneliness. By employing variations in the number of lockdown days experienced by respondents up until their interview dates, and utilizing difference in-differences analyses with individual, region, and year fixed-effects estimations, we find, contrary to expectations, that the number of days in lockdown does not significantly impact loneliness. Our study examines cumulative, concurrent, and nonlinear effects, and assesses external validity through community morale and peer effects during lockdowns using spatial analysis. Additionally, we delve into heterogeneous effects across various factors, such as income, age, personality, living arrangements, and remoteness, finding statistically and empirically insignificant effects. However, for extroverts and young people, we observe weak statistical significance. We investigate exclusion restrictions by analyzing factors including social contacts, internet access, job industry, and household characteristics in relation to loneliness; as well as time use and relationship satisfaction to better understand the underlying mechanism. Our study challenges the notion that 'being alone' and 'being lonely' are interchangeable concepts, providing the first empirical causal evidence of no links between the two. Furthermore, our findings refine earlier understandings of social isolation, highlighting that it likely encompasses factors beyond physical isolation.

Working papers:

Dreaming of a Brighter Future? The Impact of Economic Vulnerability on University Aspirations  IZA Discussion Paper Series No. 15539 (with Barry Watson and Shelley Phipps)

Under review

Abstract: We examine whether there is an inequality of opportunity concerning higher education, partially explained by the aspirations among those age 12-15 who are economically vulnerable. Using Canadian longitudinal data (2002-2008), we nd that among households in poverty, there are reduced aspirations of the youth attending university from the perspective of both the youth and their mother. Moreover, mothers tend to reduce their hopes for girls to a greater degree than for boys. In terms of magnitude, poverty contributes to about 10 percent of the observed inequality of opportunity gap (mother's education being the largest factor at 30 percent). Controlling for the perceived importance of good grades and school performance does not change the impact of economic vulnerability on school aspirations. Our results therefore suggest that alleviating child poverty, and easing post-secondary financial barriers among the poor, may help oset reduced university aspirations at a critical time in a youth's life.

The Determinants of Sick Leave: Evidence From Australia (with David Rowell and Peter Zweifel)

Abstract: The objective of this contribution is to estimate the effects of changes in social policy on the incidence of workers’ sick leave. Its focus is on Australia, a country where several such changes have been instituted since the turn of the century. The model of behaviour builds on Dionne and St. Michel (1991) by considering a worker who searches for a physician in the aim of obtaining the medical certificates needed to justify sick leave early. The policy changes give rise to a number of hypotheses which are tested using the HILDA Survey for the years 2005 through 2016. Several of the hypotheses receive empirical support; in particular, decreases in unemployment are found to be associated with a lowered incidence of sick leave, an effect that was reinforced by the introduction of the Job Capacity Assessment scheme in 2006, both as predicted. The findings of this paper should be of interest to policy makers in other countries who realise that the increases in public social expenditure are not only caused by demographic change.

Gender Bias Within Chinese Families—Who Eats First in Tough Times? (with Lars Osberg)

Abstract: This paper investigates within family the effects of parental income shocks on individual’s dietary intake. Drawing on large-scale panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey from 1991 to 2011, I examine the macronutrient intakes of 2 to 17-year-old siblings of mixed-sex and their parents in 3,244 families. Gender disparity in carbohydrate intakes accounts for 15 percentage points in child sample, 30 percentage points in adolescents, and 50 percentage points between parents using the Dietary Reference Intakes standards. The paper further shows that when families experience negative income shocks, food is allocated in the order of fathers, sons, daughters and mothers. Gender inequality of intra-household resource allocation is heightened in the event of large income losses.

Financial Stress During Pregnancy—The Short and Long-Term Effects on Children’s Health and Labour Market Outcomes (with Brenda Gannon, Alexandra Clavarino, Jake Najman)

Abstract: Recent research has established the negative impact of adversity during pregnancy on birth weight, but few studies have focused on the subjective measure of financial stress. We use a 30-year panel dataset of 8,556 mother-child pairs from the Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) to investigate the effects of financial stress during pregnancy. We focused on a wide range of children’s outcomes, including cognitive and non-cognitive development, health and labour market outcomes over a period of 30 years. By employing local linear regression propensity score matching with double robustness regression, we match children who experienced financial stress in utero with those who didn’t using a rich set of socioeconomic characteristics. After normalising the outcomes, our preliminary results indicated boys who experience prenatal financial stress were approximately 10% s.d. lower weight at birth, 27% more likely to smoke, reported 27% s.d. less educational attainment, and 26% s.d. less earnings as adults. Girls were likely to have poor self-reported health during their teenage years and score 19% higher on an anxiety scale at the age of 30. Robustness checks were done using inverse probability weighting to account for sample attrition. We also explored family pathways (e.g. maternal depression, family conflicts) to poorer outcomes in children. This paper shows that the prenatal environment has significant effects on the short, medium and long-term development of children. It adds Australian evidence to growing literature on the fetal-origins hypothesis.

Life Satisfaction Profile Comparative Study: Immigrants and Native-born Canadians

Master Thesis

Presentations:

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Chief Economist Speaker Series, Sept, 2021

IP Day at Boston University. U.S., July 2021

Canada Economic Association, Vancouver, Canada. June 2021

The Innovation Information Initiative working meetings (Sloan Foundation), U.S. 2020

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia 2020

Workshop on the Economics of Health and Wellbeing, Melbourne, Australia 2020

BEST Conference on Human Behaviour & Decision Making, Brisbane, Australia 2020

Intellectual Property and Education in the Age of COVID-19, Brisbane, Australia 2020

Knowledge and Innovation Workshop, Brisbane, Australia 2020

Behavioural Insights in Medical Technology and Practice, Brisbane, Australia 2020

International Health Economics Association Conference, Basil, Switzerland 2019

    Inequality of Opportunity Conference, Brisbane, Australia, Jun, 2019

    Canada Economic Association, Banff, Canada. May 2019

    Australian Gender Economics Workshop, Melbourne, Australia, Feb, 2019

    Australian Health Economic Society Annual Conference, Hobart, Australia, Sept 2018    

    International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, Copenhagen, Denmark. Aug 2018  

    Canadian Economic Association Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada, Jun 2018

    Invited Seminar: Melbourne University, Melbourne, Australia, Melbourne, Australia, Feb, 2018

    Western Economic Association International Meeting, New Castle, Australia, Juan, 2018    

    Australian Health Economic Society Annual Conference, Sydney, Australia, Sept, 2017    

    Invited Seminar: University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, Jan, 2017

    Atlantic Canada Economics Association, Sackville, NB. Canada Oct 2016    

    International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, Dresden, Germany. Aug 2016   

    Western Economic Association International Meeting, Portland (OR). US. Jul 2016    

    Canadian Economic Association. Toronto, Canada. May 2015  

     Atlantic Canada Economics Association, Wolfville, Canada  Oct  2015

    Atlantic Canada Economics Association, Truro, Canada Oct 2014    

    Atlantic Canada Economics Association, St. Johns, Canada Oct 2013

    Canadian Economic Association. Montreal, Canada Jun 2013