Research

Working Papers

The Impact of Government Funding on Domestic Violence Shelters and Domestic Violence Incidents (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: Domestic violence (DV) shelters receive millions of dollars in government grants each year, yet little evidence documents how this funding affects shelter operations or community-level violence. I build a novel panel of the DV shelters in Georgia (2013–2023) by scraping IRS Form 990 filings and link it to county-level hospital discharges, homicides, and child-maltreatment reports. I use this dataset to provide the first systematic description of a state’s DV shelter sector, documenting shelter finances, staffing, and the services shelters offer. Using two-way fixed effects models that exploit within-shelter variation in contemporaneous and lagged grant funding, I estimate the effect of a $100,000 increase in government grants sustained over the current and prior year. Such an increase raises annual shelter revenue by $86,700, with little evidence of crowd-out of private donations. Total expenditures rise by $73,300, including a $39,300 increase in compensation, while employee counts rise by 1.07. Thus, government grants translate into additional shelter resources and staffing. Despite these organizational responses, I find little evidence of corresponding changes in DV-related hospitalizations, homicides, or child maltreatment.

Publications

1. Islam, T., Kearns, M., and Mitra, S. (2024). Patriarchy and Child Well-Being: Evidence from India. Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 7, 294–308.

2. Kearns, M., DiRienzo, C. (2023). Sexual Violence First Experienced in Childhood or Adolescence: The Effects on U.S. Female Education and Occupation. Forum for Social Economics, 1-16. DOI: 10.1080/07360932.2023.2275119

3. Lake, D., Flannery, K., Kearns, M (2021). A Cross-Disciplines and Cross-Sector Mixed-Methods Examination of Design Thinking Practices and Outcome. Innovative Higher Education, 46(3), 337-356. DOI: 10.1007/s10755-020-09539-1