Research

From Prohibition to Choice: The Impact of Abortion Legalization on Fertility and Child Investments in Nepal

(with Ajinkya Keskar)

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Job Market Paper

Abstract

In societies with son-preference, the transition from high fertility to low fertility is often accompanied by a skewed sex ratio at birth. How expanding reproductive autonomy in such societies changes fertility and early-life investments in children remains unclear. We study this question in the context of Nepal by evaluating the impact of the 2002 abortion legalization. Using a triple-difference design comparing girls and boys across firstborn-sex families before and after the reform, we find that the abortion legalization substantially reduced son-biased fertility stopping: the gap in the number of children between firstborn-girl and firstborn-boy families fell by nearly three-fifths, while the probability that a girl is missing due to sex-selective abortion rose by 1.8 percentage points. A back-of-the-envelope calculation implies that roughly 1 in 75 girls is missing from post-reform birth cohorts. On investments, daughters in firstborn-girl families gained about two months of breastfeeding, closing most of the pre-existing deficit. Taken together, the policy response to abortion legalization in a son-preferring society indicates a quantity-quality trade-off: lower cost of achieving desired family size and sex mix can lead to intensified prenatal selection against girls and increased early-life investments in those who are born.

Is the Red-Blue Gap in Mortality Due to Government?

(with David Slichter and Case Tatro)

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In Preparation for Resubmission

Abstract

In the US, age-adjusted mortality rates are higher in “red” states, i.e., states with high support for the Republican Party. We ask whether this is attributable to state-level policies as opposed to confounding variables such as culture. Using a variety of empirical approaches, we find that state government explains between 0 and 20% of the mortality gap. Scaling this by the size of the (large) gap, red state policies increase mortality risk by 0-3% relative to blue state policies.

Gender Gap in Child Poverty: Evidence from India

(with Ajinkya Keskar)

In Progress

Abstract

We use a collective household model to structurally estimate individual-level consumption for girl and boy children, separately, using household-level data. These estimates allow us to account for the unequal division of resources within the household and to measure poverty rates for girls and boys at the individual level, unlike standard poverty measures, which are measured at the household level. Our results indicate that girls are more likely to live in poverty compared to boys in India, and a significant fraction of poor girls in fact live in households that standard poverty measures would classify as non-poor.