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We study how parental leave benefit levels affect household labor supply, family income, and child outcomes, exploiting the speed premium (SP) in the Swedish leave system. The SP grants mothers higher benefits for a subsequent child without reestablishing eligibility through market work if two births occur within a prespecified interval. We use the spacing eligibility cutoffs in a regression discontinuity framework and find that the SP improves educational outcomes of the older child but not those of the younger. Impacts are likely driven by increased maternal time and the quality of maternal time relative to the counterfactual mode of care.

We study a Chilean programme that combines home visits to households in extreme poverty with guaranteed access to social services. Its goal was to connect marginalised families to the social system to improve their living conditions. Programme impacts are identified using regression discontinuity exploring the fact that eligibility is a discontinuous function of an index of family income and assets. There is no evidence of short or long-term effects on employment or housing. However, we find short and medium-term impacts on the take-up of subsidies and employment services among families without access to the welfare system prior to the intervention.

This article studies the impact of permanent and transitory shocks to income on parental investments in children. We use panel data on family income and an index of investments in children, from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We find that there is partial insurance of parental investments against permanent income shocks but the magnitude of the estimated responses is small. We cannot reject the hypothesis of full insurance against temporary shocks. Another interpretation of our findings is that insurance possibilities are limited but the fact that skill is a non-separable function of parental investments over time results in small reactions of these investments to income shocks, especially at later ages.

This paper studies the changes in labor allocation across firms and industries in response to changes in technology (captured by the adoption of information and communication technologies, ICT) and import competition, due to increased exposure to trade competition from China. We use detailed matched worker-firm data from the Swedish manufacturing sector. We provide new evidence on the mobility of heterogeneous workers across firms and document increased assortative matching of workers in ICT intensive industries. However, the sorting patterns are not uniform across industries within this group. The adoption of ICT along with stronger Chinese import competition results in a significant skill upgrade within high-wage firms. In contrast, in the absence of strong pressures in import competition, sorting occurs at the low end of the worker-firm distribution, i.e. low-skill workers allocate to low-wage firms. Industries with low ICT intensity do not exhibit any of these sorting patterns. We rationalize our empirical findings through a labor market matching model which is able to explain the increased assortative matching in ICT intensive industries through an increase in the relative demand for qualified workers.

This paper provides new estimates of the medium- and long-term impacts of Head Start on health and behavioral problems. We identify these impacts using discontinuities in the probability of participation induced by program eligibility rules. Our strategy allows us to identify the effect of Head Start for the individuals in the neighborhoods of multiple discontinuities. Participation in the program reduces the incidence of behavioral problems, health problems, and obesity of male children at ages 12 and 13. It lowers depression and obesity among adolescents, and it reduces engagement in criminal activities and idleness for young adults.

We study an innovative welfare program in Chile which combines a period of frequent home

visits to households in extreme poverty, with guaranteed access to social services. Program

impacts are identied using a regression discontinuity design, exploring the fact that program

eligibility is a discontinuous function of an index of family income and assets. We nd strong

and lasting impacts of the program on the take up of subsidies and employment services.

These impacts are important only for families who had little access to the welfare system

prior to the intervention.

This paper provides new estimates of the medium and long-term impacts of Head Start on the health and behavioral problems of its participants. We identify these impacts using discontinuities in the probability of participation induced by program eligibility rules. Our strategy allows us to identify the effect of Head Start for the set of individuals in the neighborhoods of multiple discontinuities, which vary with family size, state and year (as opposed to a smaller set of individuals neighboring a single discontinuity). Participation in the program reduces the incidence of behavioral problems, serious health problems and obesity of male children at ages 12 and 13. It also lowers depression and obesity among adolescents, and reduces engagement in criminal activities for young adults.

This paper studies the impact of permanent and transitory shocks to income on parental investments in children. We use panel data on family income, and an index of investments in children in time and goods, from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Consistent with the literature focusing on non-durable expenditure, we find that there is only partial insurance of parental investments against permanent income shocks, and we cannot reject the hypothesis full insurance against temporary shocks. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the estimated responses is small. A permanent shock corresponding to 10% of family income leads, at most, to an increase in investments of 1.3% of a standard deviation.