Professors Michele Baggio and David Simon and co-author Alberto Chong have had the research in their work “Sex, Drugs, and Baby Booms: Can Behavior Overcome Biology?” featured in a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal:
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Professor David Simon Receives AEJ Best Paper Award
The 2018 American Economic Journal Best Paper Award for AEJ: Economic Policy has been awarded to Professor David Simon and co-authors for their paper “Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Infant Health“
AEJ: Economic Policy
In “Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Infant Health,” authors Hilary Hoynes, Doug Miller, and David Simon evaluate the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on infant health outcomes. The EITC provides a tax credit to lower income working families, and the authors demonstrate that it increases average birth weights and decreases the incidence of low birth weights — especially among the newborns of African American mothers. The authors argue that the health benefits of nonhealth programs, such as the EITC, should be taken into account when discussing the U.S. social safety net. (AEJ: Economic Policy Vol. 7, No. 1, February 2015)
Two Faculty Members Receive Journal of Human Resources Acceptances in the Same Month
Professor Simon and Professor Furtado both had papers accepted at the Journal of Human Resources in the fall semester.
Professor Simon’s paper, “The Effects of Aggregate and Gender-Specific Labor Demand Shocks on Child Health,” coauthored with Marianne Page and Jessamyn Schaller, considers the relationship between local labor market conditions and child health. The paper shows that local (state level) labor market recessions that primarily affect women increase maternal time spent at home and improve child health, whereas recessions that affect men have the opposite effects. These patterns suggest that both maternal time and family income are important inputs to child health.
Professor Furtado’s paper, “Settling for Academia? H-1B Visas and the Career Choices of International Students in the United States,” coauthored with Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, examines whether international students respond to U.S. immigration policy when making career decisions. The authors find that international students who require H-1B visas to work in the United States became more likely to pursue careers in academia -a sector not subject to H-1B visa caps- after the H-1B visa cap was lowered in 2004.
The Journal of Human Resources is a leading journal in applied microeconomics. According to the 2016 ISI Journal Citation Reports, the journal has an impact factor of 4.047. The journal’s website reports an acceptance rate of 4 percent.
Professor Simon Appointed NBER Research Fellow
Professor David Simon has been named an affiliate Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Program on Children
http://www.nber.org/people/david_simon
The Program on Children “focuses on economic behavior related to children, child health, and child economic and social well being.” Professor Simon’s research interests include health inequality, policy and health capital accumulation, early life and childhood human capital accumulation, and public policy evaluation.
Professor Simon publishes in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Professor David Simon published his paper “Does Early Life Exposure to Cigarette Smoke Permanently Harm Childhood Welfare? Evidence from Cigarette Tax Hikes” in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.
Professor Simon used restricted use health survey data to link cigarette taxes to cohorts of children. This shows that in-utero exposure to a dollar increase in the state cigarette tax causes a 10% decrease in sick days from school and a 4.7% decrease in having two or more doctor visits. Jointly these findings support the argument that exposure to cigarette smoke in utero carries significant medium-term costs, and that excise taxes can lead to lasting intergenerational improvements in wellbeing.