Essays in applied microeconomics

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays, broadly belonging to the areas of health, education, and labor economics. It studies various social issues and economic policies with respect to their consequences for labor markets, human capital formation, and health outcomes. Generally, the challenge in studying these topics is distinguishing between causation and correlation. The thesis attempts to navigate this challenge using different econometric methods and unique datasets. The first chapter examines the impacts of a quasi-random experiment- a 2009 Colorado policy change that offered expanded access to contraception, on teen births and high school dropouts. The findings from this chapter could be particularly relevant considering recent federal policy changes aimed at reducing family planning funding. The second chapter utilizes a controlled randomized experiment to examine how intrahousehold dynamics, specifically the presence of a woman’s mother-in-law, impacts the effectiveness of a family planning counseling intervention in Jordan. The fact that intrahousehold decision-making is a collaborative process could be leveraged by policymakers to create innovative strategies to promote the use of family planning. The third chapter estimates the magnitude of the employment and earnings losses for workers in Mexico after the 2008-Great Recession using high frequency social security data. The insights from the financial crisis of 2008 could be employed to target policies aiming to reduce the adverse economic impacts of other similar events (such as the Covid-19 Recession). Together these essays use techniques from applied microeconomics to solve scientific puzzles and questions closely related to practical policy issues.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Ghosh, Priyasmita

Contributors dc:contributor

• Thornton, Rebecca
• Miller, Nolan
• Marx, Benjamin
• Weinstein, Russell

• causal-inference
• policy-issues
• family planning
• labor markets

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Priyasmita Ghosh

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115678

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115678