Kegon Teng Kok TAN

RESEARCH

Work in Progress

"The Effect of Parole Board Composition on Prisoner Outcomes" (with Julia Godfrey and Mariyana Zapryanova). conditionally accepted.

"Skills, Aspirations, and Occupations" (with Alexis Orellana)

"The Effect of Activities-based Subsidies on Body Fat Loss" (with Noah Lim, Andrea Park, and Ta-Cheng Huang)

"Child Endowments and Parental Investments: Does Inequality Start at Home?" (with Jiaming Soh)

"Intergenerational Criminal Capital" (with Julia Godfrey)

"Teaching for a Better Life: In-prison Degree Programs" (with Julia Godfrey)

"The Genomic Pushes and Pulls of Pre-empitive Colorectal Screening" (with Dedrick Chan)

Publications

"How do Parole Boards Respond to Large, Societal Shocks? Evidence from the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks" (2024) (with Brendon McConnell and Mariyana Zapryanova). Journal of Public Economics, vol. 51.

We provide the first evidence of the impact of 9/11 on outcomes for Muslims in the US criminal justice system. We focus on parole outcomes of Black Muslim men in the state of Georgia, and find large post-9/11 declines in the likelihood of being granted parole and a subsequent 23% relative increase in prison time for Muslim inmates. These impacts persisted for several years after 9/11 and were larger for inmates with higher levels of recidivism risk. We argue that these effects reflect unwarranted disparities driven by the decision-making of parole board members post-9/11.

"Bequest Motives and the Social Security Notch" (2023) (with Siha Lee). Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 51.

Bequests may be a key driver of late life savings behavior and more broadly, a determinant of intergenerational inequality. However, distinguishing bequest motives from precautionary savings is challenging. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we exploit an unanticipated change in Social Security benefits, commonly called the Social Security Notch, as an instrument to identify the effect of benefits on bequests. We match data moments generated by the Notch with a model of late life savings behavior that accounts for mortality risk and unobserved expenditure shocks to identify bequest motives. The model is used to decompose the importance of bequest motives as a driver of late life savings by comparing asset profiles with and without utility from bequests. We find that roughly 40% of accumulated assets and bequests are attributable to bequest motives among retirees. Our policy counterfactual features a more progressive Social Security benefits schedule that reduces benefits for the richest retirees. We show that although wealth declines, consumption remains largely unchanged since wealth generated by bequest motives acts as a cushion against benefit reduction. 

"Peer Effects and Recidivism: The Role of Race and Age" (2022) (with Mariyana Zapryanova). Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, vol. 38(3). 

Recidivism rates are a growing concern due to the high cost of imprisonment and the high rate of ex-prisoners returning back to prison. One policy-relevant and potentially important determinant of recidivism is the composition of peer inmates. In this paper, we study the role of peer effects within a correctional facility using data on almost 80,000 individuals serving time in Georgia. We exploit randomness in peer-composition over time within prisons to identify effects of peers on recidivism rates. We find no evidence of peer effects for property or drug-related crimes in the general prison population. However, we find strong peer effects when we define peer groups by race and age. Our findings indicate that homophily plays a large part in determining the strength of peer exposure among prisoners in the same facility. These results suggest that prison assignments can be used to reduce recidivism for particular groups of prisoners.

"Neighborhood Choices, Neighborhood Effects and Housing Vouchers" (2021) (with Morris Davis, Jesse Gregory, and Dan Hartley). Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(4).

Researchers and policy makers have explored the possibility of restricting the use of housing vouchers to neighborhoods that may positively affect the outcomes of children. Using the framework of a dynamic model of optimal location choice, we estimate preferences over neighborhoods of likely recipients of housing vouchers in Los Angeles. We combine simulations of the model with estimates of how locations affect adult earnings of children to understand how a voucher policy that restricts neighborhoods in which voucher-recipients may live affects both the location decisions of households and the adult earnings of children. We show the model can nearly replicate the impact of the Moving to Opportunity experiment on the adult wages of children. Simulations suggest a policy that restricts housing vouchers to the top 20% of neighborhoods maximizes expected aggregate adult earnings of children of households offered these vouchers.

"Understanding the Mechanisms Linking Cognitive Skills, Socioemotional Skills, and College Education with Longevity" (2020) (with Peter Savelyev and Kai Hong). Journal of Human Capital, vol. 14(3).

We go beyond estimating the effect of college education on longevity by uncovering the mechanisms behind this effect while controlling for latent skills and unobserved heterogeneity. We decompose the effect with respect to a large set of potential mechanisms, including health behaviors, lifestyles, earnings, and work conditions. On the basis of data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey, we show that the effect of education on longevity is well explained by observed mechanisms. Furthermore, we find that for women, the positive effect of education on longevity has been historically masked by the negative effect of education on marriage. We discuss implications for longevity and health inequality.

"The Nurture Effects of Multidimensional Parental Skills on College Attainment" (2020) (with Jiaming Soh). Journal of Human Capital, vol.  14(1). 

We investigate the nurture effects of parental cognitive and socioemotional skills on child college attainment. By studying a sample of adopted children in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we identify nongenetic effects of parental skills on college attainment. We find that parental intelligence quotient and openness act positively on child college attainment, while agreeableness has a negative impact. A 1 standard deviation difference in each of the skills translates to a 5–6 percentage point difference in college attainment, similar to the effect size of income. Finally, we find that the nurture effects of intelligence quotient and agreeableness are driven largely by fathers, while that of openness is driven by mothers.

"Socioemotional Skills, Education, and Health–Related Outcomes of High Ability Individuals" (2019) (with Peter Savelyev). American Journal of Health Economics, vol. 5(2) p250-280. 

We use the high-IQ Terman sample to estimate relationships between education, socioemotional skills, and health-related outcomes that include health behaviors, lifestyles, and health measures across the life cycle. By both focusing on a high-IQ sample and controlling for IQ in regression models, we mitigate ability bias due to cognitive skill. In addition, we control for detailed personality measures to account for socioemotional skills. We model skills using factor analysis to address measurement error and adopt a powerful stepdown procedure to account for multiple hypothesis testing. We find that among high-IQ subjects, education is linked to better health-related outcomes, in contrast to previous evidence. Conscientiousness, Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism are linked to various health-related outcomes across the lifecycle. Furthermore, we find that accounting for a comprehensive set of skills, measurement error, and multiple hypothesis testing not only provides greater confidence in several established relationships but also generates novel results.

"Social Capital" and "Affirmative Action" (2017) (with Steven Durlauf). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Behavior, ed. Fathali M. Moghaddam. Los Angeles, California: Sage Publications.