This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to examine the effects of geographically targeted business incentives on local labor markets. Unlike elsewhere in the United States, enterprise zone (EZ) designations in Texas are determined in part by a cutoff rule based on census block group poverty rates. Exploiting this discontinuity as a…

Based on the prevalent son preference in China, this paper proposes a new measure of relative bargaining power within the household. Using data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we show that a woman with a first-born son has a 3.9 percentage points' greater role in household decision-making than a woman with a first-born daughter. Having a…

This paper explores the causal link between income and fertility by analyzing women's fertility response to the large and permanent income shock generated by a husband's job displacement. I find that the shock reduces total fertility, suggesting that the causal effect of income on fertility is positive. A model that incorporates the time cost of…

This paper uses an exogenous change in the intrahousehold distribution of income, provided by a change in United Kingdom Family Allowance policy to test the income-pooling hypothesis implied by unitary household models. Expenditure shares are estimated for a wide range of goods using household-level data. Shifts in expenditure shares suggest that…

This paper examines whether unsecured credit markets help disadvantaged households supplement temporary shortfalls in earnings by investigating how unsecured debt responds to unemployment-induced earnings losses. Results indicate that very low-asset households--those in the bottom decile of total assets--do not borrow in response to these…

This paper investigates the effect of gender differences and household bargaining on charitable giving. I replicate the study of Andreoni, Brown, and Rischall (2003) using a different data set--the recently available Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) supplement on charitable giving--and test the sensitivity of their results to inclusion of…

Using data I collected in Africa, this paper examines a household's decision to adjust its size through child fostering, an institution where biological parents temporarily send children to live with other families. Households experiencing negative idiosyncratic income shocks, child gender imbalances, located further from primary schools, or with…

This paper proposes a new method for estimating family labor supply in the presence of taxes. This method accounts for continuous hours choices, measurement error, unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for work, the nonlinear form of the tax code, and fixed costs of work in one comprehensive specification. Estimated on data from the 2001 PSID, the…

Given the recent rise in childhood obesity, the School Breakfast Program (SBP) and National School Lunch Program (NSLP) have received renewed attention. Using panel data on more than 13,500 primary school students, we assess the relationship between SBP and NSLP participation and (relatively) long-run measures of child weight. After documenting a…

This paper uses measured sibling resemblance to explore the importance of family background as a determinant of welfare program participation. The results indicate a high degree of sibling resemblance in welfare receipt. (JOW)

Suggests that changes in the work experience of wives are likely to have only a small effect on family income inequality. (JOW)

Uses a computer simulation of the distributional effect of increasing labor force participation among wives to estimate the impact on family income distribution. (JOW)

We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate the effect of new saving incentives implemented as part of the 1996 welfare reform on household saving. Economic theory predicts that loosening asset limits will increase total savings for households with a large ex-ante probability of welfare receipt such as female-headed households…

The Panel Study on Income Dynamics is used to study the trends in the elasticity of son's income in relation to parental income. The study reveals a nonlinear trend that increased for sons born between 1949 and 1953 and then declined for sons born after 1953. The direction of this linear trend is dependent on the time period and could be upward,…

A study showing that families do not pool their incomes is presented. The conclusions are based on spending pattern on clothing of women once the child subsidy payment is shifted on to mother.