Research
Job market paper:
In this paper, we study the impact of firm relocation on commuting distance and the probability of married and cohabiting couples with children separating. We use Swedish register data for 2010-2016 and select employees of relocating firms with one workplace and more than 10 employees. Focusing on this sample allows us to use plausibly exogenous variation in the commuting distance arising from the relocation. We extend the literature on the effect of commuting on the stability of relationships by reducing the possibility for unobserved time-variant factors to bias our estimates. While previous literature has focused on the difference between short- and long-distance commuting, we focus on changes in the commuting distance that are externally induced by firm management. We find a small but statistically significant negative effect of increased firm relocation distance on family stability. A 10 km change in the commuting distance leads to a 0.09 percentage point higher probability of separation if the commuter stays with the firm for the next 5 years.
Working paper:
Personal bankruptcy laws aim at a fresh start for debtors in the labor market. However, overindebtedness and unemployment may be linked in a poverty cycle which creates an endogeneity problem. In this paper, we study the impact of personal bankruptcy on regional unemployment. We avoid endogeneity by focusing on external increase in the number of bankruptcy proposals coming from increased availability of legal help. We combine a distance matrix of Slovak municipalities with opening dates of legal service offices and publicly available bankruptcy data. Our results verify the influence of legal services on bankruptcy rates and quantify the impact of additional bankruptcies on local unemployment rates.
Work in progress
Persuasive Campaigns, Abortions and Fertility
Abortion rates have declined dramatically since 1990 in developed countries and this has been in some part due to state abortion policies. The state is not the only actor attempting to shape abortion behavior. Both pro-choice and pro-life NGOs believe their campaigns are effective. Research in this area must deal with the selective nature of activist location and intensity, and also with the relatively rare nature of abortion. In this paper, I provide the first empirical evaluation of a pro-life leaflet mailing campaign based on one that operated in Slovakia during 2016-2017. The leaflet employs widely used pro-life frames, including information about fetal development and arguments supporting the notion that abortion hurts women. To identify the effect of the campaign, I use a difference-in-differences estimate of the effect of the campaign on abortion and conception rates in the treated municipalities.
Intergenerational transmission of grit (with Mariola Pytlikova)
Grit can be a meaningful predictor of mastery and professionality. Parents with grit may also have high aspirations for their children. To what extent can parents transmit grit values to their children? Most studies of grit cannot answer this question because they use selective samples and usually do not include children together with their parents. In this explorative study of a Czech Household Panel (N>= 798) which is a representative survey of Czech households, we find that aspects of grit in children are more likely to correlate significantly with the mother’s values than with the father’s. Grit correlates with mothers’ values positively and significantly even after controlling for age, gender and the Big 5 personality indicators.