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Source: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Resulting in 3 citations.

1.	Currie, Janet Cole, Nancy
1.	Welfare and Child Health: The Link Between AFDC Participation and Birth Weight Working Paper No. 92-9, Cambridge MA: MIT, Department of Economics, May 1992 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birthweight; Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Fertility; Household Composition; Income; Mothers, Behavior; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Siblings; Substance Use; Welfare Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The stated goal of the Aid for Families with Dependent Children program is to improve the well-being of children in poor families. The program has come under considerable attack in recent years from critics who argue that participation in AFDC is associated with maternal behaviors that are bad for children. We investigate this question using birth weight as a measure of child health. While AFDC mothers are indeed more likely to have children at younger ages, to delay obtaining prenatal care, to smoke, and to drink during pregnancy, we find no support for the view that AFDC participation induces these behaviors. Rather, our results suggest that some women are predisposed both to participate in AFDC and to these behaviors. These women ultimately have babies of lower birth weight. We show that when observable and unobservable characteristics of the mother are controlled for, there is actually a positive association between participation in AFDC and the birth weights of children of white women from poor families. We find no association between birth weight and maternal participation in AFDC among black children. (Now published: American Economic Review 83,4 (September 1993): 971-985 [NLS#490])
	Bibliography Citation Currie, Janet and Nancy Cole. "Welfare and Child Health: The Link Between AFDC Participation and Birth Weight." Working Paper No. 92-9, Cambridge MA: MIT, Department of Economics, May 1992.

2.	Currie, Janet Gruber, Jonathan
2.	Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women Working Paper 94-11, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 1993 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Benefits, Insurance; Birthweight; Education; Health Reform; Mortality; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. A key question for health care reform in the U.S. is whether expanded health insurance eligibility will lead to improvements in health outcomes. We address this question in the context of dramatic expansions in the Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women that took place during the 1980's. We build a detailed simulation model of each state's Medicaid policy during the 1979-1990 period, and use this model to estimate 1) the effect of changes in the rules on the eligibility of pregnant women for Medicaid, and 2) the effect of Medicaid eligibility changes on birth outcomes in aggregate Vital Statistics data. We have three main findings. First, the expansions did dramatically increase the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women, but did so at quite differential rates across the states. Second, the expansions lowered the incidence of infant mortality and low birthweight; we estimate that the 20 percentage point increase in eligibility among 15-44 year old women was associated with a decrease in infant mortality of 7%. Third, earlier, targeted changes in Medicaid eligibility, such as through relaxations of the family structure requirements from the AFDC program, had much larger effects on birth outcomes than broader expansions of eligibility to all women with somewhat higher income levels. We suggest that the source of this difference was the much lower takeup of Medicaid coverage by individuals who became eligible under the broader expansions. We find that the targeted expansions, which raised Medicaid expenditures by $1.7 million per infant life saved, were fairly cost effective compared to conventional estimates of the value of a life. We conclude that insurance expansions can improve health, but that translating eligibility to coverage may be the key link in making insurance policy effective. This record is part of the Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics (AWPE) Database, copyright (c) 1995 Cambridge University Press
	Bibliography Citation Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." Working Paper 94-11, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 1993.

3.	Ji, Yan
3.	Essays on the Macroeconomic Implications of Financial Frictions Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. Also: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/111365 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Keyword(s): College Enrollment; Debt/Borrowing; Job Search; Labor Market Outcomes; Student Loans / Student Aid Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This thesis consists of three chapters on the macroeconomic implications of financial frictions. The first chapter investigates the implications of student loan debt on labor market outcomes. I begin by analytically demonstrating that individuals under debt tend to search less and end up with lower-paid jobs. I then develop and estimate a quantitative model with college entry, borrowing, and job search using NLSY97 data to evaluate the proposed mechanism under the fixed repayment plan and the income-based repayment plan (IBR). My simulation suggests that the distortion of debt on job search decisions is large under the fixed repayment plan. IBR alleviates this distortion and improves welfare. In general equilibrium, debt alleviation achieved through IBR effectively offers a tuition subsidy that increases college entry and encourages firms to post more jobs, further improving welfare.
	Bibliography Citation Ji, Yan. Essays on the Macroeconomic Implications of Financial Frictions. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017..

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