Research

Working Papers

The Impact of Parental Resources on Human Capital Investment and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Great Recession

Job Market Paper: link to download

Abstract: I study the impact of parents' financial resources during adolescence on post-secondary human capital investment and labor market outcomes, using home value changes during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 as a laboratory. I use several restricted-access datasets from the U.S. Census Bureau to create a novel dataset that includes intergenerational linkages between children and their parents. This data allows me to exploit home value variation within labor markets, addressing the identification concern that local home values are correlated with local economic conditions. I find that the average shock to parents' housing wealth leads to persistent decreases in bachelor's degree attainment of 1.26%, earnings of 1.96%, and full time employment of 1.32%. Children of parents' suffering larger home value shocks are more likely to substitute into two-year degree programs, drop out of college, or be persistently enrolled in a college program in their late 20s.

Works in Progress

Childhood Health and Academic Outcomes (with Arjun Jain)

Abstract: We create a novel dataset by linking administrative records on Medicaid claims to administrative K-12 academic records to study the impact of health during childhood on academic performance. We focus on two novel questions: does the impact of childhood health on academic performance vary by health condition, and how does the negative impact of poor health in childhood vary by school quality? Preliminary results indicate that health conditions that are associated with more days absent from school result in worse academic performance.