Research
Research
Communities can rebuild after disasters even when the people who lived through them do not recover their prior economic positions. This paper examines that distinction using the 1937 Ohio River Flood. I combine linked full-count U.S. Census records from 1920, 1930, and 1940 with a newly constructed fine-scale geographic measure of flood damage to compare the subsequent economic outcomes of individuals from damaged and undamaged areas. Relative to comparable residents of undamaged areas, exposed sons were 6 percent less likely to attain occupational positions ranked above their fathers' and 7 percent more likely to experience large downward mobility. Exposed individuals also reached lower occupational ranks conditional on their pre-flood positions and were more likely to occupy the bottom quarter of the occupational distribution. Among wage earners, annual wage income was approximately 6 percent lower and pure unemployment approximately 16 percent higher. Evidence on labor-market adjustment is consistent with occupational displacement, particularly among previously self-employed men. These results reveal distributional consequences of disasters that conventional measures of local economic recovery may overlook.
We develop a multigenerational exposure framework for studying intergenerational dynamic complementarity in a mature public program and apply it to Head Start. The framework distinguishes intergenerational effects from intergenerational complementarity and organizes exposure into four mother-child sequences. A model of skill formation shows that the sign of the complementarity is theoretically ambiguous. Combining NLSY79 and its child sample with the 1960s rollout and 1990s funding expansions, we measure exposure in both generations. We find positive complementarity in mathematics and little evidence in reading. Because joint exposure is rare, we present the estimates as a first illustration of the design.
This paper examines the effects of a large-scale early childhood development program in Chile on children, caregivers, and family wellbeing. Using eligibility thresholds for targeted benefits and a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, I examine the effects of program participation on children's behavioral problems, caregivers' cognitive outcomes, and parent-child interactions. The results highlight the broader family impacts of early childhood interventions and contribute to the literature on child development, family investments, and social policy.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s generated large-scale environmental disruption and migration across the United States. Using linked U.S. Census records from 1920 to 1940, this project studies how families' migration responses to the Dust Bowl affected children's subsequent educational and labor-market outcomes. The project distinguishes the consequences of remaining in heavily affected areas from those associated with migration as an adaptation response.