Research
- Preparatory School Years and Maternal Employment in Romania
- This paper uses the introduction of preparatory school classes targeting six-year-old children in Romania to study whether universal, compulsory, public care provision could increase female employment. Results from difference-in-difference estimations show that the reform resulted in rising employment rates for mothers of six-year-old children. The effect is lower for mothers living in households with elderly people, but larger for those facing stronger trade-offs prior to the reform. Overall, investing in universal, compulsory, public childcare is beneficial and could significantly increase female employment and labor force participation rates. *(submitted)*
- Ending Statelessness for Displaced Children: Impacts on Early Childhood Education
- Displaced children often face educational disadvantages in their host countries. Statelessness might be one of the factors limiting educational access, but research on this aspect is limited. In this paper, I leverage the introduction of birthright citizenship for Venezuelan children in Colombia to analyze the effect of ending statelessness on educational participation during early childhood. I employ a difference-in-discontinuity strategy that exploits a birthdate and policy cutoff to determine whether a Venezuelan child became eligible for birthright citizenship or not. I find that the reform has positive effects on the participation rates of children below six years old. I explain these results by demand- and supply-side factors faced by displaced parents and their children. *(Conditionally accepted at World Bank Economic Review)*
- Middle-run Impacts of Comprehensive Early Childhood Interventions: Evidence from a Pioneer Program in Chile
- This paper analyzes the impact of comprehensive and universal early childhood development programs on outcomes in middle childhood. I exploit the birth eligibility cutoff of a pioneer intervention of this type in Chile and use administrative data on grade point averages, standardized test scores, and an extensive early childhood development survey. Program exposure raises standardized math scores by 1.8 percent of a standard deviation, standardized reading scores by 4.0 percent of a standard deviation and grade point averages by 0.03 percent of a standard deviation. However, the effect is less pronounced for girls and socioeconomically vulnerable children. Impacts on several other child development outcomes also differ by gender and socioeconomic status. *(Forthcoming at Journal of Population Economics)*
- The Critical Role of Social Leaders in the Spread of Social Movements against Gender-Based Violence
- This paper asks how social movements against gender-based violence (GBV) spread on social media. To this end, I construct a novel data set measuring 10 large social movements against GBV on Twitter. I show that these movements start suddenly and fade out quickly and that there is considerable variation at the sub-national level in the US. Twitter users are more likely to share content created by other users instead of creating original content. Polarization is low and most users express fear and sadness. Neither polarized nor emotional content generates more traction in form of likes, retweets, replies or quotes. I develop a novel instrumental variable strategy and show that Twitter users with an established network play a major role in the spread of tweets. Social inclusion is low. Users are on average female, young, and White. Tweets posted by non-white users generate less traction. Moreover, women are more prone to reference content by women, while the reverse applies to men. (submitted)
- Twitter and Crime: The Effect of Social Movements on Gender-Based Violence (with Michele Battisti and Ilpo Kauppinen)
- This paper asks whether social movements taking place on Twitter affect gender-based violence (GBV). Using Twitter data and machine learning methods, we construct a novel data set on the prevalence of Twitter conversations about GBV. We then link this data to weekly crime reports at the federal state level from the United States. We exploit the high-frequency nature of our data and an event study design to establish a causal impact of Twitter social movements on GBV. Our results point out that Twitter tweets related to GBV lead to a decrease in reported crime rates. The evidence shows that perpetrators commit these crimes less due to increased social pressure and perceived social costs. The results indicate that social media could significantly decrease reported GBV and might facilitate the signaling of social norms. *(submitted)*
- Quantifying vulnerability to poverty in El Salvador (with Monica Robayo-Abril)
- El Salvador is marked by high vulnerability to risks and hazards, such as crime, natural disasters, and migration. It is, therefore, crucial to understand the vulnerability patterns of its population. We apply an innovative approach to estimate the population's vulnerability to poverty and analyze its underlying drivers. We find that ex-ante vulnerability to poverty has decreased over the period 2016-2019, a parallel trend to the poverty reduction observed in the country during this period. This finding comes hand in hand with an increase in the importance of risk-factors relative to a low accumulation of assets driving vulnerability. Additionally, household-level shocks play a more significant role than community-level shocks. In order to address vulnerabilities in the country, the government should invest in adaptive safety nets and risk mitigation strategies. *(submitted)*
- Poverty Maps in El Salvador (with Monica Robayo-Abril)
- This report presents poverty maps at the municipality level based on the Fay-Herriot model for small-area estimations. Direct estimates of poverty indicators at the municipality level rely on information generated from household surveys. Often, though, household surveys are not representative at disaggregated levels, such as municipalities. Consequently, small sample sizes limit their precision and estimates cannot be obtained for out-of-sample domains. Due to this, we resort to small-area estimation techniques, which rely on several data sources to improve the precision of survey-based direct estimates. For the case of El Salvador, we use data from the last available Population Census conducted in 2007 and the 2019 household survey (Encuesta de Hogares de Propositos Multiples, EHPM). We also draw from population projections at the municipality level, as El Salvador is subject to high emigration rates. Many methodologies for poverty mapping require that reference years of the data sources used as a basis for small area estimations are as close to each other as possible. Due to the fact that the last available census is from 2007, we decided to use small area estimation techniques based on the Fay-Herriot model, which is the most appropriate model in this case.
- Innovations in the Space of Learning and Social Interaction (with Anna Arias-Duart and Chelsea Couture)
- The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in virtual work and learning environments. The paper at hand sheds light on how social interactions are affected in the virtual space. We focus on one specific sub-area of virtual interactions in adult professional development programs, the virtual learning environment offered to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) staff members. This study applies a qualitative research strategy and conducts semi-structured interviews with 3 different target groups. The investigation found that all 3 stakeholder groups coincide on certain advantages and disadvantages when learning online, and that the creation of meaningful social relationships virtually is especially problematic. The current investigation concludes by giving 3 higher-level recommendations on how to foster social interactions in the virtual space and relates these to specified hands-on approaches.
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