Research Interests: Public Economics, Labor Economics, Applied Microeconomics.

Dissertation Title: "Child Support Policy and Household Decision Making" (abstract).

Dissertation Committee: John Karl Scholz (Chair), John Kennan, James Walker, Meta Brown

“A Model of Divorce with Child Support.” Job Market Paper, October 2007 (pdf)

Abstract: This paper develops a simple model of child support and divorce or separation, highlighting the specific conditions that must be true for differences in child support payments to affect whether or not a couple decides to divorce, given a specific shock to match quality.  The benefit of using a model is that it provides an internally consistent framework to evaluate why parents make certain decisions, as opposed to just observing the decision.  The model makes it clear that variation in child support guidelines across states should affect some marriages and not others.  I examine the implications of the model, using individual-level data from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, which I combine with data on state-level child support guidelines and child support enforcement drawn from annual reports from the Office of Child Support Enforcement.  I find that there is a significant negative effect of child support on the probability of divorce.  Furthermore, this effect is a result of a state's presumptive guidelines as opposed to differences in child support enforcement measures, which is a factor that has not been considered in previous work.  The effect varies in magnitude with the amount of support that needs to be paid.  The effect is greater when children are younger, as the father expects to pay his support obligation for a longer time.  These estimates are not very sensitive to conditioning on divorce law or using an expected support payment.

“Child Support and the Decision to Marry.” First Draft, August 2007.

Abstract: This paper explores how differences in child support guidelines affect marital decisions.  If each spouse knows the amount of support that would need to be paid upon divorce (and also knows with some probability how many children they will have and that divorce is a possible outcome of the marriage), they will take these factors into account when they decide initially to marry.  Thus, the match quality distribution of those who marry will differ across states.  Put differently, child support will affect marriage: in some states, those with lower match qualities will not get married, while in other states, otherwise identical couples will marry.  Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth, I examine the effect of cross-state differences in child support policy on marital decisions.

“Child Support Guidelines and the Work Incentives of Married Mothers.” with John Hore, in progress.

Abstract: This paper examines how differences in child support guidelines affect the labor supply of women prior to divorce.  Previous studies have shown that married women tend to work more hours leading up to divorce.  In the 31 states that use the “Income Shares” model to determine child support obligations, the amount of support that a woman receives is inversely proportional to the share of combined income that she earns.  In these states, married women have less incentive to work prior to divorce.  Comparing the “Income Shares” states to other states provides plausibly exogenous variation in the labor market incentives of women prior to divorce.  Looking at these states relative to states that follow the “Percentage of Income” model, which depends only on the father’s income, we examine the role these incentives might have on the labor supply of women.