Large motherhood penalties in US administrative microdata.

Whereas previous research has described motherhood penalties in US survey data, we leverage administrative data on 811,000 quarterly earnings histories from the US Unemployment Insurance program. We analyze contexts where smaller motherhood penalties might be expected: couples where the woman outearns her male partner prior to childbearing, at firms that are headed by women, and at firms that are predominantly women. Our startling result is that none of these propitious contexts appear to diminish the motherhood penalty, and indeed, the gap often increases in magnitude over time following childbearing. We estimate one of the largest motherhood penalties in "female-breadwinner" families, where higher-earning women experience a 60% drop from their prechildbirth earnings relative to their male partners. Turning to proximate mechanisms, women are less likely to switch to a higher-paying firm postchildbearing than men and are substantially more likely to quit the labor force. On the whole, our findings are discouraging relative even to existing research on motherhood penalties.

Reduced trolling on Russian holidays and daily US Presidential election odds.

Russian trolls generally supported the Trump campaign and were particularly active on Twitter 2015-2017. We find that trolling fell 35% on Russian holidays and to a lesser extent, when temperatures were cold in St. Petersburg. Exogenous variation in trolling by day allows us to consider indirectly-affected political behaviors in the US-outcomes that are less traceable via tweet sharing but potentially more important to policymakers than the direct dissemination previously studied. As a case in point, we describe reduced form evidence that Russian holidays affected daily trading prices in 2016 election betting markets. This response is consistent with successful Russian interference in support of Trump.

Perinatal health among 1 million Chinese-Americans.

The literature on "missing girls" suggests a net preference for sons both in China and among Chinese immigrants to the West. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that newborn Chinese-American girls are treated more intensively in US hospitals: they are kept longer following delivery, have more medical procedures performed, and have more hospital charges than predicted (by the non-Chinese gender difference). What might explain more aggressive medical treatment? We posit that hospitals are responding to worse health at birth of Chinese-American girls. We document higher rates of low birth weight, congenital anomalies, maternal hypertension, and lower APGAR scores among Chinese American girls - outcomes recorded prior to intensive neonatal medical care and relative to the non-Chinese gender gap. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to find that son preference may also compromise "survivor" health at birth. On net, compromised newborn health seems to outweigh the benefit of more aggressive neonatal hospital care for girls. Relative to non-Chinese gender differences, death on the first day of life and in the post-neonatal period is more common among Chinese-American girls, i.e. later than sex selection is typically believed to occur.

Livestock plants and COVID-19 transmission.

Policy responses to the COVID-19 outbreak must strike a balance between maintaining essential supply chains and limiting the spread of the virus. Our results indicate a strong positive relationship between livestock-processing plants and local community transmission of COVID-19, suggesting that these plants may act as transmission vectors into the surrounding population and accelerate the spread of the virus beyond what would be predicted solely by population risk characteristics. We estimate the total excess COVID-19 cases and deaths associated with proximity to livestock plants to be 236,000 to 310,000 (6 to 8% of all US cases) and 4,300 to 5,200 (3 to 4% of all US deaths), respectively, as of July 21, 2020, with the vast majority likely related to community spread outside these plants. The association is found primarily among large processing facilities and large meatpacking companies. In addition, we find evidence that plant closures attenuated county-wide cases and that plants that received permission from the US Department of Agriculture to increase their production-line speeds saw more county-wide cases. Ensuring both public health and robust essential supply chains may require an increase in meatpacking oversight and potentially a shift toward more decentralized, smaller-scale meat production.

Later bedtimes predict President Trump's performance.

Technology and social media use are increasingly associated with delays in nightly sleep. Here, we consider the timing of President Trump's official Twitter account posts as a proxy for sleep duration and how it relates to his public performance. The President wakes around 6am, a routine which has not changed since early 2017. In contrast, the frequency of Twitter activity 11pm-2am increased 317% from under one day per week in 2017 to three days a week in 2020. The President's increased late-night activity is not accounted for by increases in the frequency of his use of social media over time, his travel schedule, or seasonality. On the day following one where he posts late at night, his Twitter followers interact less with his posts, described as "official statements by the President of the United States". He receives 7400 fewer likes per tweet, 1300 fewer retweets per tweet, and 1400 fewer replies per tweet after a late night (drops of 6.5%-8%). Tweets aside, the President's speeches and interview transcripts have previously been coded for their dominant emotion through text analysis. On the day following a late night, the President's inferred emotion is less likely to be "happy" and nearly three times more likely to be "angry" in his interviews and speeches. Finally, the 2020 election odds of the President's chief opponent also increase after a late night, while the President's are unchanged. The pattern we document is consistent with a progressive shortening of the President's sleep over his first term and compromised performance from sleep deprivation.

Quantifying coal power plant responses to tighter SO2 emissions standards in China.

We evaluate the impact of China's new air pollution standards on sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by comparing newly available data from Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS) at coal power plants with satellite measures. First, we show that following the July 2014 deadline for implementing tighter emissions standards, stack concentrations of SO2 reported by CEMS declined by 13.9%. Second, on average the ratios of the declines of SO2 measures in the satellite data and the CEMS data are about 0.5. However, the degree of correspondence between the two data sources varies by policy stringency, with weak correspondence found in key regions facing the toughest new limits. Third, large plants achieved compliance earlier than small (typically) power and heat cogeneration plants. To achieve continued air quality improvement, our results suggest a need for increased scrutiny of emissions data quality and monitoring practices and clear long-term targets.

Son-biased sex ratios in 2010 US Census and 2011-2013 US natality data.

If gender bias is receding, demographic manifestations of son preference should also tend to decrease. The sex composition of US children provides a key barometer of gender preference. In the 2010 US Population Census, Chinese and Asian-Indian families are more likely to have a son after a daughter, consistent with previous research. Korean-American families, by contrast, do not show this same pattern, paralleling recent declines in sex selection observed for South Korea. Non-Hispanic White families have sex ratios within the range of the biologically norm regardless of the sex composition of previous children. We corroborate the 2010 Census data with 2011-2013 birth certificate microdata, which likewise show elevated sex ratios for Chinese and Asian Indians at higher birth orders.

Impacts of classifying New York City students as overweight.

US schools increasingly report body mass index (BMI) to students and their parents in annual fitness "report cards." We obtained 3,592,026 BMI reports for New York City public school students for 2007-2012. We focus on female students whose BMI puts them close to their age-specific cutoff for categorization as overweight. Overweight students are notified that their BMI "falls outside a healthy weight" and they should review their BMI with a health care provider. Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare those classified as overweight but near to the overweight cutoff to those whose BMI narrowly earned them a "healthy" BMI grouping. We find that overweight categorization generates small impacts on girls' subsequent BMI and weight. Whereas presumably an intent of BMI report cards was to slow BMI growth among heavier students, BMIs and weights did not decline relative to healthy peers when assessed the following academic year. Our results speak to the discrete categorization as overweight for girls with BMIs near the overweight cutoff, not to the overall effect of BMI reporting in New York City.

An adaptive significance of morning sickness? Trivers-Willard and Hyperemesis Gravidarum.

Nausea during pregnancy, with or without vomiting, is a common early indication of pregnancy in humans. The severe form, Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), can be fatal. The aetiology of HG is unknown. We propose that HG may be a proximate mechanism for the Trivers-Willard (T-W) evolutionary hypothesis that mothers in poor condition should favor daughters. Using Swedish linked registry data, 1987-2005, we analyze all pregnancies that resulted in an HG admission and/or a live birth, 1.65 million pregnancies in all. Consistent with the T-W hypothesis, we find that: (i) HG is associated with poor maternal condition as proxied by low education; (ii) HG in the first two months of pregnancy is associated with a 7% point increase in live girl births; and (iii) HG affected pregnancies have a 34-percent average rate of inferred pregnancy loss, higher among less educated women.

Auspicious birth dates among Chinese in California.

The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture, e.g. the Beijing Olympics began at 8:08 pm on 8/8/2008. Given the potential for discretion in selecting particular dates of labor induction or scheduled Cesarean section (C-section), we consider whether Chinese-American births in California occur disproportionately on the 8th, 18th, or 28th day of the month. We find 2.3% "too many" Chinese births on these auspicious birth dates, whereas Whites show no corresponding increase. The increase in Chinese births is driven by higher parity C-sections: the number of repeat C-sections is 6% "too high" on auspicious birth dates. Sons born to Chinese parents account for the entire increase; daughter deliveries do not seem to be timed to achieve "lucky" birth dates. We also find avoidance of repeat C-section deliveries on the 4th, 14th, and 24th of the month, considered unlucky in Chinese culture. Finally, we replicate earlier work finding that Friday the 13th delivery dates are avoided and document a particularly large decrease among Chinese. For Whites and Chinese in California, mothers with higher levels of education are particularly likely to avoid delivering on the 13th.

Paternity acknowledgment in 2 million birth records from Michigan.

Out-of-wedlock childbearing is more common in the U.S. than in other countries and becoming more so. A growing share of such non-marital births identify the father, which can create a legal entitlement to child support. Relatively little is known about individual determinants of the decision to establish paternity, in part because of data limitations. In this paper, we evaluate all birth records in Michigan from 1993 to 2006, which have been merged to the paternity registry. In 2006, 30,231 Michigan children, almost one quarter of all Michigan births, were born to unmarried mothers and had paternity acknowledged. We find that births with paternity acknowledged have worse outcomes along various health and socio-economic dimensions relative to births to married parents, but better outcomes relative to births to unmarried parents without paternity acknowledgement. Furthermore, unmarried men who father sons are significantly more likely to acknowledge paternity than fathers of daughters.

Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis.

In the epidemiological literature, the fetal origins hypothesis associated with David J. Barker posits that chronic, degenerative conditions of adult health, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes, may be triggered by circumstance decades earlier, in utero nutrition in particular. Economists have expanded on this hypothesis, investigating a broader range of fetal shocks and circumstances and have found a wealth of later-life impacts on outcomes including test scores, educational attainment, and income, along with health. In the process, they have provided some of the most credible observational evidence in support of the hypothesis. The magnitude of the impacts is generally large. Thus, the fetal origins hypothesis has not only survived contact with economics, but has flourished.

The role of hospital heterogeneity in measuring marginal returns to medical care: a reply to Barreca, Guldi, Lindo, and Waddell.

In Almond et al. (2010), we describe how marginal returns to medical care can be estimated by comparing patients on either side of diagnostic thresholds. Our application examines at-risk newborns near the very low birth weight threshold at 1500 g. We estimate large discontinuities in medical care and mortality at this threshold, with effects concentrated at "low-quality" hospitals. Although our preferred estimates retain newborns near the threshold, when they are excluded the estimated marginal returns decline, although they remain large. In low-quality hospitals, our estimates are similar in magnitude regardless of whether these newborns are included or excluded.

Public vs. private provision of charity care? Evidence from the expiration of Hill-Burton requirements in Florida.

This paper explores the consequences of the expiration of charity care requirements imposed on private hospitals by the Hill-Burton Act. We examine delivery care and the health of newborns using the universe of Florida births from 1989 to 2003 combined with hospital data from the American Hospital Association. We find that charity care requirements were binding on hospitals, but that private hospitals under obligation "cream skimmed" the least risky maternity patients. Conditional on patient characteristics, they provided less intensive maternity services but without compromising patient health. When obligations expired, private hospitals quickly reduced their charity caseloads, shifting maternity patients to public hospitals. The results in this paper suggest, perhaps surprisingly, that requiring private providers to serve the underinsured can be effective.

ESTIMATING MARGINAL RETURNS TO MEDICAL CARE: EVIDENCE FROM AT-RISK NEWBORNS.

A key policy question is whether the benefits of additional medical expenditures exceed their costs. We propose a new approach for estimating marginal returns to medical spending based on variation in medical inputs generated by diagnostic thresholds. Specifically, we combine regression discontinuity estimates that compare health outcomes and medical treatment provision for newborns on either side of the very low birth weight threshold at 1500 grams. First, using data on the census of US births in available years from 1983-2002, we find that newborns with birth weights just below 1500 grams have lower one-year mortality rates than do newborns with birth weights just above this cutoff, even though mortality risk tends to decrease with birth weight. One-year mortality falls by approximately one percentage point as birth weight crosses 1500 grams from above, which is large relative to mean infant mortality of 5.5% just above 1500 grams. Second, using hospital discharge records for births in five states in available years from 1991-2006, we find that newborns with birth weights just below 1500 grams have discontinuously higher charges and frequencies of specific medical inputs. Hospital costs increase by approximately $4,000 as birth weight crosses 1500 grams from above, relative to mean hospital costs of $40,000 just above 1500 grams. Under an assumption that observed medical spending fully captures the impact of the "very low birth weight" designation on mortality, our estimates suggest that the cost of saving a statistical life of a newborn with birth weight near 1500 grams is on the order of $550,000 in 2006 dollars.

Son-biased sex ratios in the 2000 United States Census.

We document male-biased sex ratios among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents in the 2000 U.S. Census. This male bias is particularly evident for third children: If there was no previous son, sons outnumbered daughters by 50%. By contrast, the sex ratios of eldest and younger children with an older brother were both within the range of the biologically normal, as were White offspring sex ratios (irrespective of the elder siblings' sex). We interpret the found deviation in favor of sons to be evidence of sex selection, most likely at the prenatal stage.

Trivers-Willard at birth and one year: evidence from US natality data 1983-2001.

Trivers & Willard (TW) hypothesized that evolution would favour deviations from the population sex ratio in response to parental condition: parents in good condition would have more sons and parents in poor condition would have more daughters. We analyse the universe of US linked births and infant deaths to white mothers 1983-2001, covering 48 million births and 310,000 deaths. We find that (i) married, better educated and younger mothers bore more sons and (ii) infant deaths were more male if the mother was unmarried and young. Our findings highlight the potential role of offspring sex ratio as an indicator of maternal status, and the role of infant mortality in shaping a TW pattern in the breeding population.