Some advocates worry that stronger child support enforcement may increase domestic violence. The predictions of a simple economic model are ambiguous; stronger enforcement may increase the mother’s bargaining power, which reduces violence, but may also increase the father’s opportunity and...

Some advocates worry that stronger child support enforcement may increase domestic violence. The predictions of a simple economic model are ambiguous; stronger enforcement may increase the mother’s bargaining power, which reduces violence, but may also increase the father’s opportunity and...

We document manipulation of a targeting system which used a poverty index score to determine eligibility for social welfare programs in Colombia, including health insurance. We show strategic behavior in the timing of the household interviews around local elections, and direct manipulation when...

A complete account of the U.S. child care subsidy system requires an understanding of its implications for both parental and child well-being. Although the effects of child care subsidies on maternal employment and child development have been recently studied, many other dimensions of family...

The US criminal justice and welfare systems together form important government interventions into the lives of the poor. This paper considers how imprisonment is related to welfare receipt for offenders and their families. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing...

This study exploits rich data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to distinguish the effects of family structure at birth from family stability over time on child cognitive, socio-emotional and health outcomes. We define two models: one that measures family structure at...

Abstract Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and non-cognitive ability appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive development by...

Los programas de transferencias condicionadas en Latinoamérica han venido desarrollando diferentes mecanismos para distribuir más eficientemente los subsidios entre las familias beneficiarias. En Colombia, desde el año 2009, se inició un Plan de Bancarización cuyo propósito, además de...

In this paper we investigate the effect of relative income on marital status. We develop an identity model based on Akerlof and Kranton (2000) and apply it to the marriage decision. The empirical evidence is consistent with the idea that people are more likely to marry when their incomes...

This study seeks to determine the role that parental incarceration plays on the probability of food insecurity among families with children and very low food security of children using micro-level data from the Fragile Families and Child Well Being Study (FFCWS). The data set contains the...