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Source: University of Chicago
Resulting in 13 citations.
1. Bernal, Raquel
The Effect of Maternal Employment and Child Care Choices on Children's Cognitive Development
Working Paper (April 2005), University of Chicago, Department of Economics, April 2005.
Also: http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/Bernal060205.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Child Care; Child Development; Endogeneity; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

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

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model of employment and child care decisions of women after birth in order to evaluate the effects of maternal employment and daycare choices on children's cognitive ability. I use data from the NLSY to estimate the model. Results indicate that the effects of maternal employment and child care on children's ability are negative and rather sizeable. In fact, having a full-time working mother who uses child care during the first 5 years after the birth of her child is associated with a 10.4% reduction in child's ability test scores. Based on the estimates of the model, I assess the impact of policies related to parental leave, child care and other incentives to stay at home after birth on women's decisions and children's outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Bernal, Raquel. "The Effect of Maternal Employment and Child Care Choices on Children's Cognitive Development." Working Paper (April 2005), University of Chicago, Department of Economics, April 2005.
2. Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay
Michael, Robert T.
Desai, Sonalde
Impact of Early Maternal Employment on Children's Development: The Role of the Home Environment
Working Paper, Department of Educational Seminar Series, The University of Chicago, June 1991
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Child Development; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

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

Bibliography Citation
Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay, Robert T. Michael and Sonalde Desai. "Impact of Early Maternal Employment on Children's Development: The Role of the Home Environment." Working Paper, Department of Educational Seminar Series, The University of Chicago, June 1991.
3. Cosconati, Marco
Optimal Parenting Styles: Evidence from a Dynamic Game with Multiple Equilibria
Presented: University of Chicago, Family Economics and Human Capital (FINET) Conference, November 2012
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Child Development; Human Capital; Parent Supervision/Monitoring; Parenting Skills/Styles; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Television Viewing

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

There is little consensus among social science researchers about the effectiveness of alternative parenting strategies in producing desirable child outcomes. Some argue that parents should set strict limits on the activities of their adolescent children, while others believe that adolescents should be given relatively wide discretion. In this paper, I develop and estimate a model of parent-child interaction in order to better understand the relationship between parenting styles and the development of human capital in children. Using data from the NLSY97, the estimates of the model indicate that the best parenting style depends on the stock of adolescent human capital. Setting strict rules increases the study time of children with low skills, but is detrimental for adult human of the more knowledgeable teenagers.
Bibliography Citation
Cosconati, Marco. "Optimal Parenting Styles: Evidence from a Dynamic Game with Multiple Equilibria." Presented: University of Chicago, Family Economics and Human Capital (FINET) Conference, November 2012.
4. Heckman, James J.
Cunha, Flavio
Investing in Our Young People
Working Paper, University of Chicago, November 2006.
Also: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/061115.education.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Cognitive Development; Family Influences; Family Resources; Family Studies; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Motor and Social Development (MSD); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Racial Differences; Temperament

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

An econometric analysis of data from the landmark National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1979 (NLSY79) to determine the most effective way to invest in our young people. Heckman and Cunha identified low-achieving white girls from the 1979 study who later became mothers of boys. Then they examined in detail the "investments" in cognitive and non-cognitive skills that the mothers' children had received, particularly family investments.

This paper develops econometric models of skill formation that distill the essence of recent empirical findings from the literature on child development. The goal is to provide a theoretical framework for interpreting the evidence from a large empirical literature, for guiding the next generation of empirical studies, and for formulating factually based policy.

Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J. and Flavio Cunha. "Investing in Our Young People." Working Paper, University of Chicago, November 2006.
5. Heckman, James J.
Humphries, John Eric
Urzua, Sergio
Veramendi, Gregory
The Effects of Educational Choices on Labor Market, Health, and Social Outcomes
Working Paper No. 2011-002, Human Capital and Ecnomic Opportunity Working Group, Economic Research Center, University of Chicago, October 2011
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Behavior, Antisocial; Body Mass Index (BMI); CESD (Depression Scale); Cognitive Ability; Divorce; Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Educational Attainment; Health, Mental/Psychological; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Labor Market Outcomes; Pearlin Mastery Scale; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); School Performance; Welfare

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

Using a sequential model of educational choices, we investigate the effect of educational choices on labor market, health, and social outcomes. Unobserved endowments drive the correlations in unobservables across choice and outcome equations. We proxy these endowments with numerous measurements and account for measurement error in the proxies. For each schooling level, we estimate outcomes for labor market, health, and social outcome. This allows us to generate counter-factual outcomes for dynamic choices and a variety of policy and treatment effects. In our framework, responses to treatment vary among observationally identical persons and agents may select into the treatment on the basis of their responses. We find important effects of early cognitive and socio-emotional abilities on schooling choices, labor market outcomes, adult health, and social outcomes. Education at most levels causally produces gains on labor market, health, and social outcomes. We estimate the distribution of responses to education and find substantial heterogeneity on which agents act.
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J., John Eric Humphries, Sergio Urzua and Gregory Veramendi. "The Effects of Educational Choices on Labor Market, Health, and Social Outcomes." Working Paper No. 2011-002, Human Capital and Ecnomic Opportunity Working Group, Economic Research Center, University of Chicago, October 2011.
6. Hurst, Erik
Rubinstein, Yona
Shimizu, Kazuatsu
Task Based Discrimination
Working Paper No. 2021-40, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, University of Chicago, June 28, 2021.
Also: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3875550
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Discrimination, Job; Discrimination, Racial/Ethnic; Job Skills; Racial Differences; Skills; Wage Gap

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

Why did the Black-White wage gap converge from 1960 to 1980 and why has it stagnated since? To answer this question, we introduce a unified model that integrates notions of both taste-based and statistical discrimination into a task-based model of occupational sorting. At the heart of our framework is the idea that discrimination varies by the task requirement of each job. We use this framework to identify and quantify the role of trends in race-specific factors and changing task prices in explaining the evolution of the Black-White wage gap since 1960. In doing so, we highlight a new task measure--Contact tasks--which measures the extent to which individuals interact with others as part of their job. We provide evidence that changes in the racial gap in Contact tasks serves as a good proxy for changes in taste-based discrimination over time. We find that taste-based discrimination has fallen and racial skill gaps have narrowed over the last sixty years in the United States. However, since the 1980s, the effect of declining racial skill gaps and discrimination on the Black-White wage gap were offset by the increasing returns to Abstract tasks which, on average, favored White workers relative to Black workers.
Bibliography Citation
Hurst, Erik, Yona Rubinstein and Kazuatsu Shimizu. "Task Based Discrimination." Working Paper No. 2021-40, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, University of Chicago, June 28, 2021.
7. Lambert, Susan
Fugiel, Peter
Henly, Julia
Precarious Work Schedules among Early-Career Employees in the US: A National Snapshot
Research Brief, EINet (Employment Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network), University of Chicago, August 27, 2014.
Also: https://ssa.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/lambert.fugiel.henly_.precarious_work_schedules.august2014_0.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Employment, Intermittent/Precarious; Job Characteristics; Work Hours/Schedule; Working Conditions

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

This research brief presents an overview of work schedules among a representative sample of early-career adults (26 to 32 years old) in the United States. Based on an analysis of new items included in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), the brief describes the distribution of three dimensions of work schedules--advance schedule notice, fluctuating work hours, and schedule control--across early-career workers in hourly and non-hourly jobs, overall and separated by gender, regular work hours (full-time/part-time), race, and occupation. In addition, the brief gives special consideration to selected groups of hourly workers, including parents, women, workers of color, and workers in low-pay, high-growth occupations, who are at particular risk of precarious work schedules and economic insecurity. Finally, the brief suggests some implications of these descriptive findings for public policy and future research.
Bibliography Citation
Lambert, Susan, Peter Fugiel and Julia Henly. "Precarious Work Schedules among Early-Career Employees in the US: A National Snapshot." Research Brief, EINet (Employment Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network), University of Chicago, August 27, 2014.
8. Lambert, Susan
Henly, Julia
Measuring Precarious Work Schedules
Working Paper, The Employment Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network (EINet), University of Chicago, November 2014.
Also: https://ssascholars.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/einet/files/managingprecariousworkschedules_11.11.2015.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Employment; Well-Being; Work Hours/Schedule

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

In this working paper, we suggest new possibilities for measuring unpredictable and fluctuating hours, as well as two other dimensions of work schedules that research has already established hold critical implications for worker and family well-being, namely nostandard work timing and employee control over work schedules. Our recommendations reflect insights gained from analyzing a set of new and revised survey items that were included in a recent round (Round 15) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort (NLSY97) and that were designed to tap into each of these four dimensions of work schedules.
Bibliography Citation
Lambert, Susan and Julia Henly. "Measuring Precarious Work Schedules." Working Paper, The Employment Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network (EINet), University of Chicago, November 2014.
9. Levitt, Steven D.
Lochner, Lance John
The Determinants of Juvenile Crime
Working Paper, University of Chicago and American Bar Foundation, February 2000.
Also: http://www.econ.rochester.edu/lochner/levitt-lochner.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior, Antisocial; Crime; Labor Market Demographics; Labor Market Studies, Geographic; State-Level Data/Policy

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

Criminal involvement in the United States rises sharply with the onset of adolescence, peaking in the late teenage years before dropping steadily thereafter. An eighteen-year old is five times more likely to be arrested for a property crime than a thirty-five year old; for violent crime the corresponding ratio is 2 to 1. In 1997, those aged 15-19 comprised roughly 7 percent of the overall population, but accounted for over 20 percent of arrests for violent offenses and roughly one-third of all property crime arrests.

This essay examines the issue of youth crime. We begin by laying out the basic facts and trends relevant to youth crime over the last thirty years. We then consider both the social costs of youth crime and the personal risks and costs borne by the criminals themselves. After reviewing the various hypotheses as to the determinants of crime identified in the previous literature, we present three new sets of estimates that shed light on the issue. The first set of regressions use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to explore the correlates of crime at the individual level. The second analysis focuses on census tract-level homicide data for the city of Chicago over a thirty year period. These data provide a means of better understanding the influence of social factors and local labor market conditions on youth crime. The final data set is a state-level panel covering fifteen years. The state-level analysis is ideal for examining the impact of the criminal justice system (and to a lesser extent economic factors). We use these three sets of estimates to determine the extent to which observed fluctuations in the correlates of crime can explain the time series pattern of juvenile crime over the last three decades.

Bibliography Citation
Levitt, Steven D. and Lance John Lochner. "The Determinants of Juvenile Crime." Working Paper, University of Chicago and American Bar Foundation, February 2000.
10. Moon, Seong Hyeok
Multi-Dimensional Human Skill Formation with Multi-Dimensional Parental Investment
Presented: Chicago, IL, Department of Economics, University of Chicago, Workshop on Life Cycle Dynamics and Inequality, October 2008; Revised 2014.
Also: http://home.uchicago.edu/~moon/finvestgrpahs-2008-11_moon.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Educational Attainment; Family Structure; High School Completion/Graduates; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Mothers, Education; Parental Influences; Parental Investments; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math)

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

"Parental Investment" has been proposed as a key determinant of human skill. Accounting for its multidimensional nature allows more nuanced understanding of the skill formation process. Human skill itself is also multi-dimensional. This paper provides a consolidated framework to analyze a multi-dimensional skill formation process with multi-dimensional parental investment. A dynamic factor model is employed as the main workhorse and empirical results from Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (C-NLSY79) are presented for various demographic groups. The results suggest that different kinds of parental investment contribute to the formation of different types of skill at different developmental stages. Implications for policy design and inter-generational transmission of inequality also are discussed.
Bibliography Citation
Moon, Seong Hyeok. "Multi-Dimensional Human Skill Formation with Multi-Dimensional Parental Investment." Presented: Chicago, IL, Department of Economics, University of Chicago, Workshop on Life Cycle Dynamics and Inequality, October 2008; Revised 2014.
11. Nielsen, Eric R.
Ordinal Estimation Of Income-Achievement Gaps
Working paper, Becker Friedman Institute Initiative, University of Chicago, April 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Academic Development; Achievement; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Family Income; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

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

This paper develops ordinal methods to test for changes in the relative academic performance of youth from high-income and low-income households. Applied to the NLSY79 and NLSY97 surveys, these ordinal methods show that the difference in academic achievement between youth from high and low-income households narrowed substantially between 1980 and 1997. In contrast, methods relying on the cardinal comparability of test scores suggest that the gap did not change between these two surveys. The cardinal assumption is not necessary and leads to incorrect inference in this important, real-world setting.
Bibliography Citation
Nielsen, Eric R. "Ordinal Estimation Of Income-Achievement Gaps." Working paper, Becker Friedman Institute Initiative, University of Chicago, April 2013.
12. Pantano, Juan
Parental Reputation
Presented: University of Chicago, Family Economics and Human Capital (FINET) Conference, November 2012
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Academic Development; Birth Order; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Discipline; Educational Attainment; Parent Supervision/Monitoring; Parent-Child Interaction; Parenting Skills/Styles; School Performance; Television Viewing

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

Pantano's model involves two types of parents--those that are naturally tough, and those that are lenient but may wish to mimic tough types to discourage bad behavior. But although these parents are rewarded for toughness through their child's school performance, they receive direct disutility from punishing their children. The children, on the other hand, receive some utility from their outcomes, but disutility from putting in effort--they also, naturally, dislike being punished. If a parent punishes children when low outcomes are seen, they develop a reputation for toughness, that carries over to future children, and is anticipated when these children choose how much effort to put in. This "reputation bonus" to punishment decreases from first-born to last-born. Therefore, the model predicts that punishment for the same level of underperformance should decline with birth order; and Pantano shows this effect is seen empirically in data from the NLSY. This model presents the possibility that some portion of birth-order effects may be due to the declining need with each subsequent child for parents to establish a reputation for toughness, relative to the cost of punishing children. By decreasing the cost of punishing bad behavior or increasing the ability to monitor a child's effort, it may be possible to reduce this component of the birth order effect.
Bibliography Citation
Pantano, Juan. "Parental Reputation." Presented: University of Chicago, Family Economics and Human Capital (FINET) Conference, November 2012.
13. Wilson, Fernando A.
Tipping the Scales: Why Are American Kids Getting Fatter?
Presented: Chicago, IL, Departiment of Economics, University of Chicago, Applications of Economics, March 08, 2004.
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Asthma; Body Mass Index (BMI); Computer Use/Internet Access; Family Structure; Household Composition; National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); Obesity; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Television Viewing; Weight

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

Link to abstract and pdf: http://economics.uchicago.edu/news_workshops_applications_Winter04.shtml

The so-called epidemic of childhood obesity is not particular to American culture but has been shown to be a worldwide phenomenon typified by a substantial increase in the prevalence of obesity occurring within a short time span. Despite a prodigious body of literature on obesity within the medical community, little work on this subject has been done by economists. This paper attempts to bring an economic perspective on the child obesity explosion that has been well documented but generally ill explained. Analysis of diet diary data rejects putting the blame of child obesity trends on diet. Similarly, changes in labor market allocations, parent education, family composition, and medical innovations were not found to be important. Empirical evidence on time allocations by children is also explored in the paper.

Bibliography Citation
Wilson, Fernando A. "Tipping the Scales: Why Are American Kids Getting Fatter?." Presented: Chicago, IL, Departiment of Economics, University of Chicago, Applications of Economics, March 08, 2004..