Research

Published and Forthcoming Papers:

• "Maternal Influence on Birth Outcomes and Intergenerational Disadvantage," IZA Discussion Paper Series No. 16492, with James Heckman. Forthcoming, Journal of Human Capital (lead article).

Abstract: Newborn health is an important component in the chain of intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of health at birth in two ways. First, we analyze the role of maternal endowments and investments (education and smoking in pregnancy) on the probability of having a baby who is small for gestational age (SGA). We estimate both the total impact of maternal endowments on birth outcomes, and we also decompose it into a direct, “biological” effect and a“choice” effect, mediated by maternal behaviors. Second, we estimate the causal effects of maternal education and smoking in pregnancy, and investigate whether women endowed with different traits have different returns. We find that maternal cognition affects birth outcomes primarily through the effect on child education, that personality traits mainly operate by changing maternal smoking, and that the physical fitness of the mother has a direct, “biological” effect on SGA. We find significant heterogeneity in the effects of education and smoking along the distribution of maternal physical traits, suggesting that women with a less healthy physical constitutions should be the primary target of prenatal interventions.

• "The Impact of the Level and Timing of Parental Resources on Child Development and Intergenerational Mobility," NBER working paper 31093, with James Heckman and Rasmus Landersø. Accepted at Journal of Labor Economics.

Abstract: This paper presents a new approach to measuring the intergenerational transmission of well-being and a novel perspective on which measures and what age ranges to use to estimate intergenerational social mobility. We select the measures and the age ranges that best predict important human capital outcomes of children. The predictive power of parental resources varies among measures of parental resources as well as the age ranges used to measure them. Lifetime measures outperform traditional snapshot proxies for lifetime incomes based on income flows at certain age windows in predicting child outcomes, regardless of the ages when child outcomes are measured. The sensitivity of IGE estimates to the ages at which parental resources are measured is far smaller than their sensitivity to whether lifetime measures are used or whether snapshot measures are used. We also find that the financial resources of parents compensate in part for nonmonetary inputs to child human capital such as the stability of the family and education of parents. We interpret our estimates using the technology of skill formation modified to account for the emergence of new skills in adolescence.

Working Papers:

• "Intergenerational Transmission of Family Influence," NBER working paper 30412, with James Heckman, Rasmus Landersø, and Rafeh Qureshi. R&R at Econometrica.

Media Coverage

• VoxEU

• Chicago Booth Review

• Politiken

Abstract: This paper studies intergenerational mobility—the transmission of family influence. We develop and estimate measures of lifetime resources motivated by economic theory that account for generational differences in lifecycle trajectories, uncertainty, and credit constraints. We estimate the transmission of welfare and lifetime resources at different stages of the life cycle and compare these with traditional ones such as wage income and disposable income measures over narrow age intervals that are often thought to proxy lifetime wealth. Parents’ expected lifetime resources are stronger predictors of many important child outcomes (including children’s own expected lifetime resources and education) than the income measures traditionally used in the literature on social mobility. Educational attainment across generations explains most of the intergenerational life-cycle dynamics. Relative mobility is overstated by the traditional income measures, but absolute upward mobility is understated. Recent generations have higher welfare and are better off compared to their parents.

• "Pricing Neighborhoods,"  NBER working paper 31371, with James Heckman, and Goya Razavi, submitted.

Media Coverage

• Berlingske

Abstract: Education in Denmark is freely available. Despite near equal teacher salaries and per-pupil school expenditure across districts, there is substantial spatial heterogeneity in school quality as measured by teacher quality and student test scores. We argue that this is due to sorting of teachers and students across neighborhoods. We develop and apply multiple methods to identify parental valuation of measured school quality in the presence of strong neighborhood sorting. There is strong concordance in the estimates across diverse methodologies. We estimate a willingness to pay of about 3% more for a house with average characteristics when test scores are one standard deviation above the mean. Controlling for selection into neighborhoods only slightly reduces our estimates. Given that school quality, as measured by monetary resources, is equalized across all neighborhoods, payments for school quality embodied in housing prices are in fact payments for peer, teacher, and neighborhood quality. This evidence challenges the appropriateness of the current emphasis in the literature on Tiebout-based models of neighborhood choice that stress sorting on parental income in order to finance the local public good of school quality. Rather, a model of neighborhood choice to select neighbor and peer quality is more appropriate. Our findings are consistent with evidence that cash expenditures on classrooms have weak effects on child achievement.

• "Child Development and the Timing of Fertility,"  submitted.

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of mothers’ ages at childbirth on children’s skills by developing and estimating a lifecycle model of child development. I decompose the impacts of postponement on the child into the negative effect of reproductive aging and the positive effect of higher investments. Results indicate that a five-year decrease in the maternal age of educated women, all else equal, results in around 11% increase in children’s skills due to higher abilities to acquire skills. A maternity leave policy that eliminates the motherhood penalty would be effective in both reducing the childbearing age and increasing children’s skill levels.

• "Fertility Expectations, Human Capital Investment, and the Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from a Natural  Experiment," submitted.

Abstract: I exploit the exogenous variation in the sibling sex composition of the first two births to identify the causal effect of fertility expectations on earnings. I find that having same-sex children is associated with about 5% lower wages for mothers before the third childbirth, compared to having children of opposite sexes. Mothers of same-sex siblings face a higher risk of a third child, so are less attached to the labor market and hence are less likely to invest in their workplace. Results imply that a non-negligible part of the gender wage gap can be attributed to fertility expectations. 

• "Is Zip Code Destiny?,"  submitted.

Abstract: Recent studies argue that 60%-100% of geographic variations in upward mobility in the US is due to the causal effect of neighborhoods. I provide evidence that the identifying assumptions underlying the influential studies are untenable for Denmark using detailed registers. The lessons from Denmark likely generalize. I document life cycle heterogeneity in the neighborhood sorting process invalidating the assumption of constant selection effects by the child’s age when the family moves that is maintained in an influential literature. The neighborhood exposure effects estimated in prominent recent studies only reflect the correlational estimates of place effects and not causal effects. 

• "The Dynastic Benefits of Neighborhood Sorting," with Goya Razavi Ebrahimi. The Draft is available upon request.

• "Dispersal Policy and Refugee Outcomes," with Goya Razavi Ebrahimi. The Draft is available upon request.

Work in Progress: 

• "Early Childhood Investments and Adulthood Outcomes: Evidence from Immigrants in Denmark"

• "Neighborhood Mobility over the Life Cycle, Sorting, and Segregation," with James Heckman and Goya Razavi Ebrahimi

• "Intergenerational Mobility and Human Capital: Evidence from Three Generations,'' with Kjell Salvanes and Julia Li Zhu