Health Insurance and Labor Supply: Evidence from Same-Sex Couples, Contemporary Economic Policy, 2025, 1–22. [Link]
The Effects of Board Gender Quotas: A Meta-Analysis (with Costanza De Acutis and Andrea Weber), Labour Economics, 2024, Vol. 91 [Link] [Data]
Writing Like a Girl: Writing Style and the Gender Publication Gap in Economics (with Karoline Lehner and Alyssa Schneebaum)
Women are underrepresented in economics, due at least in part to their lower publication success. We study the relationship between writing style and publishing, identifying gender differences in word choice that are related to the probability of publication in top economics journals. We construct datasets on economics articles and authors based on the entire body of articles in the EconLit database from 1970-2020, with our main sample comprising verified article abstracts from papers published in 1990-2015. We establish stylized facts showing that female authors are more likely than male authors to use cautionary words in their writing, which are associated with lower rates of success in publishing in top journals. Male and female economists are similarly likely to use confident and self-promoting words associated with higher rates of publication in top journals. To test for gender differences in the relationship between writing style and top publication success, we predict the probability of an article being in a top five journal, varying writing style choices and controlling for author fixed effects and article quality for male and female authors. The results show that the use of booster words increases the probability of publication in a top five journal by seven percentage points for female authors, but not at all for male authors. Female authors face a different probability of publication success depending on their writing style choices.
Workplace Breastfeeding and Maternal Employment (with Pia Heckl)
This paper investigates the impact of workplace breastfeeding laws on mothers’ labor supply. We exploit state-level laws introduced throughout 1998-2009 that require employers to provide break time and a private room for women to express milk or breastfeed. Our results show an increase in breastfeeding initiation and the probability that a child was breastfed at three and six months after birth. We find that workplace breastfeeding significantly increase maternal employment by 4% when children are in breastfeeding age. Our results highlight the importance of preferences, individual constraints, and initial labor market attachment for contextualizing the breastfeeding and employment responses.
Empowered Mothers, Empowered Generations: The Impact of Women's Economic Rights (with Esther Arenas-Arroyo)
This paper explores the long-run effects of women’s economic rights on generations exposed to property acts during childhood. We find that childhood exposure to economic rights reduces the probability of marriage, particularly among women, and increases female labor force participation in adulthood. To explore potential mechanisms, we document several short-run effects among the adult generation contemporaneous to the reforms, including improved occupational standing and reduced fertility, as well as lower child mortality, and increased children's schooling. Our results suggest that expanding economic rights for women shapes outcomes of multiple generations.
Do female members on corporate boards make a difference? An evaluation of the introduction of the gender board quota in Austria (with Andrea Weber)