Research

I provide the first estimates of teacher value added on college admissions test scores, using administrative data from North Carolina to estimate the impacts of high school teachers on students’ ACT performance. While ACT score value added is largest for English teachers, the impacts of ACT score value added on college enrollment and college performance are largest for math teachers. Assignment to a math teacher with high ACT score value added increases on-time college enrollment, decreases freshman dropout, and increases 4-year college completion, conditional on enrollment. My results suggest that high school teachers have significant scope to influence the accumulation of college-relevant cognitive skills.

Using administrative data from North Carolina, I study the decision to take multiple college admissions tests in the presence of universal ACT testing. I find that low-income students are less likely than their peers to take the SAT in addition to the state-mandated ACT, and that they improve upon their initial ACT scores by less when doing so. Taken together, these disparities decrease low-income students’ rankings in the test score distribution when evaluating students on their maximum score rather than their initial ACT score. I provide evidence that income gaps in multiple test-taking are partially driven by differential responses to the ability signal sent by a student’s initial ACT score.

Whether income support programs disincentivize marriage and disrupt family stability has long generated policy debate. We provide an update to this literature and examine the causal impacts of monthly unconditional cash transfers on preregistered measures of single parenthood and family stability during children’s first three years of life. Among mothers cohabiting at birth, cash transfers increase marriage during the year after birth. Considering countervailing influences on changes in marriage and cohabitation over time, we find no overall impact on single parenthood, defined as living without any romantic partner, positive impacts on family stability, and no evidence of marital dissolution.

The U.S. food-based safety net has proven successful in reducing food insecurity and decreasing hunger. Nevertheless, many families remain financially stretched to meet nutrition and food needs. This paper summarizes previously published findings coupled with new analyses of data through the third year of follow-up on the effects of a monthly unconditional cash gift on outcomes related to food security, spending, and consumption from the Baby’s First Years study.

Children represent the largest indirect beneficiaries of the U.S. social welfare system. Yet, many questions remain about the direct benefits of cash aid to children. The current understanding of the impacts of cash aid in the U.S. is drawn primarily from studies of in-kind benefits, tax credits, and conditional cash aid programs. A corresponding economics literature focuses on the role of income and the labor supply responses of parents, parenting skills, and early education as family investment mechanisms that reduce socioeconomic inequality in children’s well-being. In contrast to the U.S., dozens of low- to middle-income nations use direct cash aid—conditional or unconditional—as a central policy strategy, with demonstrated positive effects across a host of economic and health measures and selected aspects of children’s health and schooling. This paper reviews the economic research on U.S. safety net programs and cash aid to families with children and discusses what existing studies reveal about the impacts of cash aid on family investment mechanisms and children’s outcomes. We specifically highlight gaps in understanding the impacts of unconditional cash aid on children. We then review nine contemporary unconditional cash transfer programs and discuss their promise and limitations in filling the U.S.-based economic evidence gap. 

Despite unprecedented increases in women’s college attendance and labor force participation over the last century, large gender differences in pay persist even for graduates of elite universities. Can these gender differences in salary be explained by observed differences in graduates’ skills and preparation, such as choice of major? Using unique data from the University of Virginia Career Center, I apply linear Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition models as well as unconditional quantile decomposition methods to measure the extent to which differences in early career compensation can be explained by observable differences in productive characteristics. I find that the explained share varies greatly across the pay distribution. In particular, at the low end of the salary distribution, the gender pay gap is larger and is only partially accounted for by gender differences in college major choice, industry choice, and internship experience. At the middle of the pay distribution, the gender pay gap can be almost entirely attributed to observable gender differences in these characteristics. Interestingly, at the high end of the salary distribution, gender differences in college major choice, industry choice, and internship experience suggest that the gender pay gap should be even larger than what is observed in the data. My results suggest that female graduates in high-paying majors and industries do not encounter a “glass ceiling” at the beginning of their careers. Rather, female UVA graduates either receive preferential labor market treatment, are more competent than male peers in the same majors and industries, or demand compensating wage differentials to account for differences in preferences for certain high-paying positions.