We use data from the earlier and later cohorts of the NLSY to estimate the effect of marriage and childbearing on wages. Our estimates imply that marriage lowers female wages 2-4 percent in the year of marriage. Marriage also lowers the wage growth of men and women by about two and four percentage points, respectively. A first birth lowers female wages 2-3 percent, but has no effect on wage growth. Male wages are unaffected by childbearing. These findings suggest that early marriage and childbearing can lead to substantial decreases in lifetime earnings.
Between 1989 and 1999, U.S. electric utilities spent $14.7 billion on demand-side management (DSM) programs aimed at encouraging their customers to make investments in energy efficiency. This study relies on panel data on 324 utilities spanning 11 years to estimate the effect of DSM expenditures on retail electricity sales. Our estimates imply that DSM had a much smaller effect on retail electricity sales than do estimates reported by utilities themselves over the same study period.
a b s t r a c tDespite numerous empirical studies, there is surprisingly little agreement about whether the Social Security earnings test affects male labor supply. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the labor supply effects of the earnings test using longitudinal administrative earnings data and more commonly used survey data. We find that the response to the earnings test in survey data is obfuscated by measurement error and labor market rigidities. Accounting for these factors, our results suggest a consistent and substantial response to the earnings test, especially for younger men.
This article tests whether parents reinforce or compensate for child endowments. We estimate how the difference in birth weight across siblings impacts specific parental investments: breast-feeding, well-baby visits, immunizations, and preschool attendance. Our results indicate that normal-birthweight children are 5%-11% more likely to receive early childhood parental investments than their low-birth-weight siblings. Moreover, the presence of additional low-birth-weight siblings in the household increases the likelihood of investments such as well-baby visits and immunizations for normal-birth-weight children. These results suggest that parental investments in early childhood tend to reinforce endowment differences.
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