Marian Vidal-Fernandez

Grandparents' Childcare and Female Labor Force Participation

In the United States, approximately 20% of employed mothers with children under 5 use grandparents as their primary source of childcare. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), we investigate whether the availability of this source of childcare has a causal effect on mother’s labor force participation. We compare Ordinary Least Squares 0(OLS), women’s Fixed Effects (FE) and Instrumental Variables (IV) estimates. We find that OLS estimates overestimate the effect of grandparental childcare on young mothers’ labor force participation and are not significantly different from IV estimates. In our preferred specification, FE, we find that the availability of grandparental childcare significantly increases mothers’ labor force participation by 9 percentage points and that this effect is largely driven by minority, single or never married mothers. Our findings suggest that policies that raise retirement ages might increase older cohorts’ labor participation rates at the expense of young women’s through childcare availability.JEL codesJ2; I3.

The Early Origins of Birth Order Differences in Children’s Outcomes and Parental Behavior

We document birth order differences in cognitive and noncognitive outcomes and maternal behavior from birth to adolescence using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). As early as age one, later-born children score lower on cognitive tests than their siblings, and the gap increases until school entry and remains statistically significant thereafter. Variations in parental behavior, such as cognitive stimulation by mothers, can explain a large portion of the birth order differences in cognitive abilities before school entry. Our findings suggest that broad shifts in parental behavior are plausible explanations for the observed birth order differences in education and labor market outcomes.

Activity-based payments and reforms of the English hospital payment system

In their debate article, Andrew Street and Alan Maynard highlight the problems with using average cost pricing for hospital payments in the English National Health Service, pointing out that lack of cost containment and failure to improve quality are potential weaknesses. In this invited comment we elaborate on a number of further concerns that deserve attention, centring on incentives across different settings, better payment for variations in patient severity, and promoting quality of care. We draw upon experience in the US, Australia and Spain for examples of alternative provider payment systems and their impact.

Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Laboratory

While survey data supports a strong relationship between personality and labour market outcomes, the exact mechanisms behind this association remain unexplored. We take advantage of a controlled laboratory set-up to explore whether this relationship operates through productivity. Using a real-effort task, we analyse the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance. We find that more neurotic subjects perform worse, and that more conscientious individuals perform better. These findings suggest that at least part of the effect of personality on labour market outcomes operates through productivity. In addition, we find evidence that gender and university major affect this relationship.

Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Lab

While survey data supports a strong relationship between personality and labor market outcomes, the exact mechanisms behind this association remain unexplored. In this paper, we take advantage of a controlled laboratory set-up to test whether this relationship operates through productivity, and isolate this mechanism from other channels such as bargaining ability or self-selection into jobs. Using a gender neutral real-effort task, we analyse the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance. We find that more neurotic subjects perform worse, and that more conscientious individuals perform better. These findings are in line with previous survey studies and suggest that at least part of the effect of personality on labor market outcomes operates through productivity. In addition, we find evidence that gender and university major affect the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance.

The Effect of Minimum Academic Requirements to Participate in Sports on High School Graduation

Abstract During the 1970s, state interscholastic associations imposed rules requiring student athletes to pass a certain number of subjects in order to be allowed to participate in school sports. Using the NLSY together with a newly collected dataset on the stringency of the rules, I exploit variation in the rules across states to estimate their effects on high school graduation. I find that requiring students to pass one additional course is associated with a two-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of graduation. This result survives a number of robustness checks, including finding no effect for female students who at the time had limited access to interscholastic competitions.

No Pass No Drive: Education and Allocation of Time

Do negative incentives or sticks in education improve student outcomes? Since the late 1980s, several U.S. states have introduced No Pass No Drive (NPND) laws that set minimum academic requirements for teenagers to obtain driving licenses. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) and Monitoring the Future (MTF), we exploit variation across state, time, and cohort to show that NPND laws led to a 6.4 percentage point increase in the probability of graduating from high school among black males. Further, we show that NPND laws were effective in reducing truancy and increased time allocated to school-work at the expense of leisure and work.