Research

This paper establishes the first causal link between relationship bargaining power and US pregnancy outcomes. I introduce a novel instrument based on randomness in sex at birth to address endogeneity in the availability of adult male partners, which proxies for female bargaining power. Higher female bargaining power causes fewer out-of-wedlock births, reduces chlamydia and hypertension in mothers, and lowers the incidence of low APGAR score in newborns. Connecting this to racial health disparities, Black women's limited partner prospects contribute to 5-10% of the racial health gap. Eliminating racial disparities in incarceration would prevent 200-700 adverse outcomes annually among Black mothers.

This paper examines how spousal health shocks affect gender disparity in health and labor outcomes. We define “household penalty” as the burden on family members resulting from other members’ health issues. Using insurance claims in the US, a difference-in-difference analysis shows partners’ infection increases their own infection probabilities by 1.2 pp (percentage points) for males and 2.2 pp for females. Mexican labor surveys show women’s labor supply decreases by 4.6 hours after their partner’s health shock, while men experience a 3-hour reduction. The mechanism lies in household specialization: as women’s income share increases, their penalty decreases, while men’s penalty increases.

Epidemics can have devastating health and economic consequences. This paper studies the diffusion of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) through social and economic networks. Using almost two decades of weekly, county-level infection and mortality data from Poland, it studies within and across-counties ILI transmission. Firstly, it evaluates the causal effect of school closures on viral transmission. The results show that closing schools for two weeks decreases the number of within county cases by 30-40%. The decline in infections extends to elderly and pre-school children. In addition, flu-related hospitalizations drop by 7.5%, and mortality related to respiratory diseases among the elderly drops by 3%. Secondly, the paper demonstrates the significant contribution of economic links to diffusion across counties. The disease follows the paths of workers commuting between home and workplace. Together with the structure of the labor mobility networks, these results highlight the central role of regional capitals in sustaining and spreading the virus.

This paper investigates how reopening hotels and ski facilities in Poland impacted tourism spending, mobility, and COVID-19 outcomes. We used administrative data from a government program that subsidizes travel to show that the policy increased the consumption of tourism services in ski resorts. By leveraging geolocation data from Facebook, we showed that ski resorts experienced a significant influx of tourists, increasing the number of local users by up to 50%. Furthermore, we confirmed an increase in the probability of meetings between pairs of users from distanced locations and users from tourist and non-tourist areas. As the policy impacted travel and gatherings, we then analyzed its effect on the diffusion of COVID-19. We found that counties with ski facilities experienced more infections after the reopening. Moreover, counties strongly connected to the ski resorts during the reopening had more subsequent cases than weakly connected counties. Cost-benefit analysis shows that costs stemming from additional hospitalizations and deaths vastly outweighed the economic benefits of reopening, even in the ski resorts.