We study the effect of unemployment on child maltreatment in the United States for the period 2004-12, at the county level. We use a new administrative dataset containing every report of child abuse and neglect made to the Child Protective Services, and identify the effect using a Bartik instrument. A one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate causes a 20 percent increase in neglect...

Anthropologists have documented substantial and persistent differences in food preferences across social groups. My paper asks whether such food cultures can constrain caloric intake? I first document that inter-state migrants within India consume fewer calories per Rupee of food expenditure compared to their neighbors. Second, I show that migrants bring their origin-state food preferences with...

Theoretical and experimental studies of the evolution of a frequency-chirped pulse under the influence of both phase and gain dispersive effects induced by the free-electron laser (FEL) interaction are presented. For the experimental parameters used (electron beam voltage V ~ 150 kV, wiggler periodicity i.. = 3.5 cm, gain 10 dB, input pulse width At 200 ns, frequency wo/2r i10 GHz and frequency...

Self-selection can bias estimates of treatment effects from randomized experiments if one is interested not merely in the effect of treatment on the treated, but in extrapolating results to the general population. This paper employs the Roy model to study this problem in the context of medical trials. The main insight is that, as the probability of receiving active treatment rises, patients who...

We analyze the eff ect of job insecurity on psychological health. We extend the group of people being aff ected to employees who have insecure jobs to account for a broader measure of the mental health consequences of potential unemployment. Using panel data with staff reductions in the company as an exogenous source of job insecurity, we fi nd that an increase in fear of unemployment substanti...

We estimate the fraction of disease cases, and the fraction of their total medical expenditures, attributable to smoking for two disease groups: (LC) lung and laryngeal cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, (CHD) cardiovascular disease, stroke and other smoking-caused cancers. We use a generalized additive model to predict the probability of disease; and a semi-parametric, two-part ...

This paper provides a framework to evaluate human life based on civil court decisions on damages for pain and suffering. Using judgements from Germany and Austria over the last 25 years, we calculate an average Value of Damages for Pain and Suffering (VDPS) of about EUR 1.79 millions, with a minimum (maximum) of around EUR 0.67 (4.62) millions. Our approach also allows to calculate the value of...

The behavior of jogged screw dislocations in y-TiAl alloys has been investigated with large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simuIations. We find a new mechanism for formation of pinning points in jogged screw dislocations. We also find that the critical height for the jogs in the +[i10] directions on the (001) plane to move nonconservatively is between 3ro and 4r0, where ro is the nearest neighbo...

Does union membership increase sickness absence from work and, if so, by how much? And which specific channels does this effect operate through? Using UK Labour Force Survey data for 2006-2008 we find that trade union membership is associated with a substantial increase in the probability of reporting sick and in the amount of average absence taken. This result can be largely attributed to the ...

The Effect of Breastfeeding on Children’s Cognitive and Noncognitive Development This paper uses propensity score matching methods to investigate the relationship between breastfeeding and children’s cognitive and noncognitive development. We find that breastfeeding for four weeks is positively and statistically significantly associated with higher cognitive test scores, by around one tenth of ...