Mismeasured Household Size and Its Implications for the Identification of Economies of Scale We consider the possibility that demographic variables are measured with errors which arise because household surveys measure demographic structures at a point-in-time, whereas household composition evolves throughout the survey period. We construct and estimate sharp bounds on household size and find t...

The theory of Markov decision processes (MDP) can be used to analyze a wide variety of stopping time problems in economics. In this paper, the nature of such problems is discussed and then the underlying theory is applied to the question of arranged marriages. We construct a stylized model of arranged marriages and, inter alia, it is shown that a decision maker' s optimal policy depends only on...

Almost 50 years after domestic US family planning programs began, their effects on childbearing remain controversial. Using the county-level roll-out of these programs from 1964 to 1973, this paper reevaluates their shorter and longer term effects on US fertility rates. I find that the introduction of family planning is associated with significant and persistent reductions in fertility driven b...

Does Parental Divorce Affect Adolescents' Cognitive Development? Evidence from Longitudinal Data In this paper we analyse data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 to investigate whether experiencing parental divorce during adolescence reduces measured cognitive ability. To account for the potential endogeneity of parental divorce we employ a difference-in-differences model th...

This paper uses Propensity Score Matching to investigate the causal effect of breastfeeding on children’s cognitive development. There is a strong association between breastfeeding and cognitive outcomes; however, it is notoriously difficult to establish whether this is causal, or whether it arises because mothers who breastfeed tend to be those whose children would do better anyway. Using PSM,...

This paper presents an evolutionary model to explain the widespread diffusion of lifelong monogamous families. The essential condition, unique to humans, is the overlap of children of different ages. Under this condition, together with the salience of paternal investment and fatherhood uncertainty, monogamy attains a greater survivorship than serial monogamy and polygyny. This result is robust ...

I provide new evidence on the relative “powers” of contraception and abortion policy in effecting the dramatic social transformations of the 1960s and 1970s. Trends in sexual behavior suggest that young women’s increased access to the birth control pill fueled the sexual revolution, but neither these trends nor difference-in-difference estimates support the view that this also led to substantia...

This paper intends to provide an evaluation of where the economic research on happiness stands and in which interesting directions it might develop. First, the current state of the research on happiness in economics is briefly discussed. We emphasize the potential of happiness research in testing competing theories of individual behavior. Second, the crucial issue of causality is taken up illus...

Are U.S. immigrants' English proficiency and social outcomes the result of their cultural preferences, or of more fundamental constraints? Using 2000 Census microdata, we relate immigrants' English proficiency, marriage, fertility and residential location variables to their age at arrival in the U.S., and in particular whether that age fell within the "critical period" of language acquisition. ...

The Dynamics of Marriage and Divorce We formulate and estimate a dynamic model of marriage, divorce, and remarriage using 27 years of panel data for the entire Danish cohort born in 1960. The marital surplus is identified from the probability of divorce, and the surplus shares of husbands and wives from their willingness to enter marriage. Education and marriage order are complements in generat...