Generational Talent
The Macroeconomic Consequences of Early Childhood Development Policies
Diego Daruich
Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
To study long-run large-scale early childhood policies, this paper incorporates early childhood investments into a general-equilibrium (GE) heterogeneous-agent overlapping-generations model calibrated using US data. An RCT evaluation of a short-run small-scale early childhood program in the model predicts effects on children’s education and income that are similar to the empirical evidence. A long-run large-scale program, however, yields over twice as large welfare gains as those of a short-run small-scale program, even after considering GE and taxation effects. Key to this difference is that investing in a child not only improves her skills but also creates better ancestors for future generations.
Like A Good Neighbor: Childhood Neighbors Influence Occupation Choice
Michael Andrews et al.
BYU Working Paper, August 2025
Abstract:
We explore the role of immediate next door neighbors in affecting children’s later life occupation choice. Using linked historical census records for over 6 million boys and 4 million girls, we reconstruct neighborhood microgeography to estimate how growing up next door to someone in a particular occupation affects a child’s probability of working in that occupation as an adult, relative to other children who grew up farther away on the same street. Living next door to someone as a child increases the probability of having the same occupation as them 30 years later by about 10 percent. As an additional source of exogenous variation in exposure to next door neighbors, we exploit untimely neighbor deaths and find smaller and insignificant exposure effects for children who grew up next to a neighbor with an untimely death. We find larger exposure effects when intensity of exposure is expected to be higher, and document larger occupational transmission in more connected neighborhoods and when next door neighbors are the same race or ethnicity or have children of similar ages. Childhood exposure to next door neighbors has real economic consequences: children who grow up next to neighbors in high income or education occupations see significant gains in adult income and education, even relative to other children living on the same street, suggesting that neighborhood networks significantly contribute to economic mobility.
From status and rank to report card: Examining the influence of social class on adolescent academic achievement
Rashmita Mistry et al.
Journal of Research on Adolescence, March 2026
Abstract:
To advance understanding of the relations between social class and adolescent development, the current study examined the extent to which both objective SES (i.e., parental education level, qualified for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch; FRPL) and adolescents' perceptions of their subjective SES (i.e., subjective social status (SSS), social class identity) influenced educational outcomes via social interactions with peers and psychological well-being across the first 2 years of high school. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of adolescents in the Southwest U.S. and included 724 adolescents who completed annual surveys in 9th and 10th grade. In total, 40% were White, 33% Latino/a/x, 9% Asian, 6% Black, and 12% biracial/multiracial. Slightly more than half (54%) of participants were female, and 39% were from families deemed economically disadvantaged based on student eligibility for FRPL. Results of structural equation modeling analyses indicated evidence of multi-mediation, such that higher SSS and social class identity in the 9th grade were associated with fewer social struggles, which in turn were linked to better psychological well-being and higher school engagement, which was associated with higher grades at the end of 10th grade. Sensitivity analyses confirmed evidence of mediation, controlling for course grades in 9th grade. The study findings highlight adolescents' subjective perceptions of SES as meaningful, distinct forces in their social and academic lives, positioning this dimension of identity as a critical lens for understanding how inequality shapes youth development.
Family Friendly Workplace Policy and Early Career Job Sorting: The Example of Paid Maternity Leave
Anja Gruber
University of Wyoming Working Paper, December 2025
Abstract:
Much of the observed gender wage gap can be explained by differences in the types of jobs held by men and women. This paper examines the role of family friendly job amenities in women’s job selection by testing whether their career choices respond to changes in access to paid maternity leave. State paid family leave (PFL) programs provide almost universal access to paid leave for new mothers and therefore disproportionately increase access to paid leave in jobs with lower employer-provided leave taking in the absence of PFL. I test whether state PFL increases the concentration of young women in jobs that prior to the policy change had lower levels of employer-provided paid leave. I use data from the Current Population and American Community surveys to estimate an industry level measure of employer-provided paid leave taking in the absence of policy. I then exploit the implementation of the California (2004), New Jersey (2009), and Rhode Island (2014) programs to test whether PFL affects the industry group distribution of college educated women age 25-39 using difference-in-differences and staggered adoption design estimations. I find that PFL led to a quantitatively meaningful flow into jobs with lower levels of employer-provided paid leave taking in the absence of PFL. Treating my job level measure of paid leave taking as fixed, the distribution of jobs changed enough to lower the average industry level measure of paid leave by two percent, indicating that women value paid leave as an amenity, even prior to motherhood.
Earthquakes and the intergenerational delegation of responsibility
Nurun Naher Moni, Muhammad Habibur Rahman & Ruhul Salim
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, January 2026
Abstract:
Do earthquakes affect parents’ preferences for raising responsible children? By merging data on random variations in the frequency and timing of earthquakes with five waves of the World Values Survey from 1995 to 2022 at the district level across 90 countries, our event-specific difference-in-differences estimates reveal that parents affected by moderate earthquakes increase their preference for responsible children by 5.9 percentage points due to perceived risks. We argue that moderate shocks heighten risk perceptions without depleting parental capacity, whereas strong earthquakes dampen this effect by reducing the capacity required to instill responsibility. Our empirical evidence suggests that governments should embed child-centred disaster risk reduction frameworks within post-disaster recovery strategies to enhance long-term disaster resilience.