Research

Abstract. Women’s empowerment in developing countries remains understudied, and in particular its impact on child welfare. I examine how women’s intra-household bargaining power – proxied by women’s land ownership, education, perception about justified wife-beating, and household decision-making – affects child welfare indicators. Using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from Cambodia from 2000 to 2022, I estimate how women’s empowerment affects child school enrollment status and child anthropometric health outcomes. I also explore whether these impacts differ by the gender of the child, and potentially reduce any gender-based inequality in child welfare. In order to reduce the bias in the estimators of these effects, I control for household level characteristics and region and time fixed effects. The findings will contribute to the literature on gender and development by providing new evidence from Cambodia and offering insights for policies targeting child welfare.

Abstract. Scholars and policymakers have long argued that public libraries offer essential community resources during times of economic strife. However, to our knowledge, most of this evidence has been anecdotal or correlational. Using Public Library Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Business Dynamic Statistics datasets, we present causal estimates of the effect of regional unemployment on local public library usage. From OLS and instrumental variable models, we find that from 2008 to 2019, increased rates of unemployment led to increased visits, circulation, and computer usage at local libraries. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these relationships reversed, with COVID-related unemployment causing a reduction in visits, but not necessarily use. Reflecting on various dimensions of community need and library resources, we contextualize our results in the broader literature on public libraries as valuable economic resources.

Abstract. Public libraries are regularly relied upon for community resources beyond just books. In this paper, we ask: do public libraries help fill care gaps? Using data from the United States Public Library Surveys and the National Database on Childcare Prices, we construct a panel of public libraries from 2008 to 2022 matched with corresponding demographic and childcare pricing information in their respective counties. Using these data, we estimate how family demographics and care costs relate to attendance in children’s programming and circulation of children’s books in public libraries. Ultimately, we find that in counties with more single mothers, higher home-based childcare prices, and higher rates of family-level poverty, libraries have higher attendance in young children’s programming activities and greater children’s book circulation. We test the robustness of our results using several instrumental variable analyses and falsification tests. Ultimately, we suggest that libraries serve as important public spaces of social reproduction.

Abstract. Recent literature has identified an association between short-term pollution exposure and crime in the US and in the United Kingdom (UK). In this paper, we expand our understanding of the effects of pollution on crime by looking at the association between pollution, specifically at Particulate Matter (PM) and Ozone (O3), and counts of aggregated crime types and Anti-social Behaviour (ASB) in the UK. We primarily focus our analysis on ASB, as the literature has identified costs associated with them in the UK, but has overlooked its association with pollution. Using a fixed effects model, we found an association between pollution and some crime types, especially those that are economically motivated. We find weaker evidence of an association between pollution and offenses associated with aggressive and violent behavior (including ASB), and we discuss potential mechanisms in the context of the rational choice crime model. We conclude that one potential mechanism could be a decrease in the utility of the non-punishable alternative activity, or a decrease of the offender's value of the future costs associated with being caught.

Applied a two-way fixed-effects research design to uncover a significant wage premium for occupations involving ethical tradeoffs, with effects increasing by age and education. Presented findings at Lafayette College's Poster Symposium, demonstrating how markets price moral considerations and offering insights with implications for workforce management, compensation strategies, and organizational decision-making.