Berger, Lawrence Marc
Hill, Jennifer L.
Waldfogel, Jane
Maternity Leave, Early Maternal Employment and Child Health and Development in the US
Economic Journal 115,501 (February 2005): F29-F47.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0013-0133.2005.00971.x/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Breastfeeding; Child Development; Child Health; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Re-employment;

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to explore links between mothers' returns to work within 12 weeks of giving birth and health and developmental outcomes for their children. OLS models and propensity score matching methods are utilised to account for selection bias. Considerable associations between early returns to work and children's outcomes are found suggesting causal relationships between early returns to work and reductions in breastfeeding and immunisations, as well as increases in externalising behaviour problems. These results are generally stronger for mothers who return to work full-time within 12 weeks of giving birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bratsberg, Bernt
Roed, Knut
Raaum, Oddbjorn
Naylor, Robin
Jantti, Markus
Eriksson, Tor
Osterbacka, Eva
Nonlinearities in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility: Consequences for Cross-Country Comparisons
Economic Journal 117,519 (March 2007), C72-C92.
Also: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02036.x
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Britain, British; Cross-national Analysis; Denmark, Danish; Educational Attainment; Family Background; Fathers and Sons; Finland, Finnish; Income Dynamics/Shocks; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British); Norway, Norwegian; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID);

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We show that the patterns of intergenerational earnings mobility in Denmark, Finland and Norway, unlike those for the US and the UK, are highly nonlinear. The Nordic relationship between log earnings of sons and fathers is flat in the lower segments of the fathers earnings distribution – sons growing up in the poorest households have the same adult earnings prospects as sons in moderately poor households – and is increasingly positive in middle and upper segments. This convex pattern contrasts sharply with our findings for the US and the UK, where the relationship is much closer to being linear. As a result, cross-country comparisons of intergenerational earnings elasticities may be misleading with respect to transmission mechanisms in the central parts of the earnings distribution and uninformative in the tails of the distribution.

Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling
The Economic Journal 112, 482 (October 2002): 705-734
Also: http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/BibEc/data/Articles/ecjeconjlv:112:y:2002:i:482:p:705-734.html
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; College Enrollment; Credit/Credit Constraint; Debt/Borrowing; Educational Returns; Family Income; Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Schooling; Schooling, Post-secondary;

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper examines the family income--college enrollment relationship and the evidence on credit constraints in post-secondary schooling. We distinguish short-run liquidity constraints from the long-term factors that promote cognitive and noncognitive ability. Long-run factors crystallized in ability are the major determinants of the family income--schooling relationship, although there is some evidence that up to 4% of the total U.S. population is credit constrained in a short-run sense. Evidence that IV estimates of the returns to schooling exceed OLS estimates is sometimes claimed to support the existence of substantial credit constraints. This argument is critically examined. This article draws on both the NLSY79 and the Children of the NLSY79, utilizing PIAT Math scores from the latter dataset.

Hao, Lingxin
Hotz, V. Joseph
Jin, Ginger Zhe
Games Parents and Adolescents Play: Risky Behaviour, Parental Reputation and Strategic Transfers
Economic Journal 118,528 (April 2008): 515-555.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02132.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing, Adolescent; Family Resources; Risk-Taking; School Dropouts; Siblings; Transfers, Family; Transfers, Parental;

This article examines parental reputation formation in intra-familial interactions. In a repeated two stage game, children decide whether to drop out of high school or daughters decide whether to have births as teens and parents then decide whether to provide support to their children beyond age 18. Drawing on Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Kreps and Wilson (1982), we show that, under certain conditions, parents have the incentive to penalise older children for their adolescent risk-taking behaviour in order to dissuade their younger children from such behaviour when reaching adolescence. We find evidence in favour of this parental reputation model.

Paserman, Marco Daniele
Job Search and Hyperbolic Discounting: Structural Estimation and Policy Evaluation
Economic Journal 118,531 (August 2008): 1418-1452.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02175.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Employment; Human Capital; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Job Search; Mobility; Modeling; Unemployment; Unemployment Duration; Wage Levels; Wages; Work Histories;

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This article estimates the degree of hyperbolic discounting in a job search model quantitatively, using data on unemployment spells and accepted wages from the NLSY. The results point to a substantial degree of hyperbolic discounting for low and medium wage workers. The structural estimates are then used to evaluate alternative policy interventions aimed at reducing unemployment. The estimated effects of a given policy can vary by up to 40%, depending on the assumed type of time discounting. Some interventions may raise the long-run utility of hyperbolic workers, and at the same time reduce unemployment duration and lower government expenditures.