Economics - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAre Employment Protection Laws for Persons with Disabilities Effective in a Developing Country?(University of Chicago Press, 2023-04)This paper investigates the impact of a law protecting the employment rights of persons with disabilities in Cambodia. Similar to studies in high income countries, we find that Cambodia’s national disability law did not improve the employment situation of persons with disabilities, and may have worsened it, four years after implementation. The reduction in employment and hours worked of disabled persons following the law’s introduction is concentrated among employees, females, young persons, those with less than a primary school education, and in the industrial sector. We explore supply and demand side explanations for the disability law’s unintended effect. On balance, the most likely explanation for the reduced work activity of disabled workers is lower demand for their labor from employers facing workplace accommodation costs and in an environment where employment quotas for disabled workers appear to have been set at non-binding levels.
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ItemHours worked by general practitioners and waiting times for primary care(WILEY, 2018-10)The decline in the working hours of general practitioners (GPs) is a key factor influencing access to health care in many countries. We investigate the effect of changes in hours worked by GPs on waiting times in primary care using the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life longitudinal survey of Australian doctors. We estimate GP fixed effects models for waiting time and use family circumstances to instrument for GP's hours worked. We find that a 10% reduction in hours worked increases average patient waiting time by 12%. Our findings highlight the importance of GPs' labor supply at the intensive margin in determining the length of time patients must wait to see their doctor.
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ItemDelinquency, Arrest and Early School Leaving*(WILEY, 2021-04)Abstract Boys typically initiate delinquent behaviour during their teenage years, and many go on to be arrested. We show that engaging in delinquency and being arrested in youth are each associated with early school leaving. The effect of delinquency on school leaving is largely driven by crimes that produce a monetary return, and the increase in school leaving is greater when onset of these types of crime, and arrest, occur at younger ages. The sizeable impact of delinquency on school leaving highlights the need for crime prevention efforts to extend beyond youth who come into contact with the justice system.
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ItemCan Electronic Monitoring Reduce Reoffending?(Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press (MIT Press), 2022-03-01)We evaluate electronic monitoring as an alternative to prison for non-violent offenses. Leveraging plausibly exogenous variation in sentencing outcomes generated by quasirandom assignment of judges, we find electronic monitoring reduces reoffending at both extensive and intensive margins. Compared with prison, electronic monitoring is estimated to reduce the probability of reoffending by 22 percentage points 5 years after sentencing and by 11 percentage points 10 years after sentencing, with the cumulative number of offenses reduced by 45 percent 10 years after sentencing. These results demonstrate that electronic monitoring can have sustained crime-reducing effects.
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ItemHazardous or Not? Early Cannabis Use, and the School to Work Transition of Young Men(Wiley, 2020-10-01)We study the relationship between cannabis use and early labor market experiences of young men, focusing on the time it takes them to find their first job, and the wage rate they receive at that job. We find that early cannabis users accept job offers more quickly and at a lower wage rate compared with otherwise similar males who did not use cannabis. These differences are present only for those who use cannabis for longer than a year before starting their job search. We also find that early cannabis users are less likely to return to education and, as a consequence, will have a lower educational attainment. Overall, our findings provide new insights into the direct and indirect relationships between cannabis use and early labor market experiences.
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ItemIS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND HEALTH STRONGER FOR OLDER CHILDREN IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES?(SPRINGER, 2009-05)Recent research on the relationship between child health and income in developed countries reveals a positive gradient that is more pronounced for older children, suggesting that the impact of income upon health accumulates. This article examines whether the same is true in a developing country. Using data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey on children aged 0 to 14 years, we find that although low income adversely affects health, its impact does not differ by age. This finding is robust to the use of both subjective and objective health measures, controlling for selective mortality, the use of alternative measures of households' resources, and the inclusion of indicators of health at birth and parental health. One explanation for the constancy of the health-income relationship that we explore is the dominant role played by acute illness in determining the general health status of children in a developing-country context compared with the more central role played by chronic conditions in developed countries.
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ItemTurning from crime: A dynamic perspective(Elsevier, 2008-07)
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ItemCannabis prices and dynamics of cannabis use(ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, 2007-05-01)This paper uses duration models and self-reported cannabis histories from young Australians to study the dynamics of cannabis use. We find that low cannabis prices are associated with early initiation into cannabis use. While the decision to quit does not appear to be directly influenced by price, we find that the younger an individual is when they start using cannabis the less likely they are to quit. Therefore, low cannabis prices lead to early use and because of that they lead to a low quit rate and hence a longer duration of use.
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