ALT Effects of the Child Protection System on Parents Marie-Pascale Grimon Published online before print April 08, 2026, 0424-13537R2; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.0424-13537R2 Abstract Child protective services investigate a third of child-homes for maltreatment, yet repercussions for parents remain unclear. I show that mothers face considerable adversity when referred for alleged child maltreatment. Using a novel strategy that combines event studies with variation in intervention tendency across investigators, I find that child protective services interventions increase mothers’ enrollment in mental health and substance abuse treatment services for a year, even when those services are not mandated. Earnings and employment are unaffected. Marginal interventions can lead to persistent involvement with social services for years.

ALT Understanding Gender Match Effects in Higher Education The Role of Class Size Stephan Maurer, Guido Schwerdt and Simon Wiederhold Published online before print April 08, 2026, 0224-13406R1; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.0224-13406R1 Abstract It is widely believed that female students perform better when taught by female professors. However, little is known about the mechanisms explaining these gender match effects. Using administrative records from a German public university, which cover all programs and courses between 2006 and 2018, we show that gender match effects are sizable in smaller classes, but are absent in larger classes. These results suggest that direct and frequent interactions between students and professors are crucial for gender match effects to emerge. In contrast, the mere fact that one’s professor is female is not sufficient to increase performance of female students.

ALT This paper investigates the relationship between desired fertility, wealth, and female employment in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While ideal family size is generally higher at all levels of wealth in SSA, the gap relative to other regions is substantially larger among poorer households and narrows with wealth. Additionally, poorer women in SSA are less likely to work for wages. Examining the relationship between these two patterns reveals a negative correlation between desired fertility and wage work prevalence across SSA provinces, a trend virtually absent in other regions. Furthermore, within SSA provinces, increases in the share of women engaged in wage work over time are associated with a flatter wealth-desired fertility gradient.

ALT We evaluate a large-scale government reform in Peruvian public secondary schools that lengthened the school day and invested in pedagogy, staffing, and infrastructure. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find that the program increased math and reading test scores by approximately 0.185 SD and 0.102 SD, respectively. For math only, we estimate that instructional time contributes approximately two-thirds of the effect, suggesting the importance of complementary inputs. The reform effectively enhanced school resources and increased students’ overall study time. Relative to other education interventions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, the program delivered above-average learning gains but was relatively expensive.

ALT We measure firms’ wage-setting power in 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Exploiting variation in firms’ exposure to trade and exchange rates, we generate shocks to labor demand to trace out firm-level labor supply curves and quantify labor market power. We estimate an inverse labor supply elasticity of 0.82, implying that workers receive 55 cents per additional dollar produced. Wage-setting power is significantly higher among firms in countries with lower union density, limited collective bargaining, and no unemployment protection. This underscores the role of labor market institutions in shaping firms’ wage-setting power and the distribution of the gains from trade.

ALT Pipeline programs intended to increase diversity in STEM fields are common, but there is little rigorous evidence of their efficacy. We fielded a randomized controlled trial to study a suite of such programs targeted to underrepresented high school students and hosted at an elite technical institution. Students offered seats in the STEM summer programs were likelier to enroll in, persist through, and graduate from elite colleges and to graduate with a degree in a STEM field. These improvements in college outcomes raised predicted earnings by 3–15 percent.

ALT Leon (2012) found that exposure to political violence in Peru during childhood negatively affected completed schooling using a 2 percent sample of the 1993 and 2007 censuses. When using the full sample in 1993, we find statistically significant effects of exposure pre-conception, violating the parallel pre-trends assumptions of Leon (2012). We also find that the long-run effects (measured in 2007) are smaller in magnitude using the full census. Finally, we show valid evidence of an actual adverse impact of political violence, but only for those exposed in utero.

ALT I explore the interplay between cash welfare and health-related outcomes using Canadian administrative data. Healthcare use rises sharply before a welfare application, especially for plausibly work-limiting diagnoses, then partially normalizes within three years. Using application adjudicators’ decisions as "judge IVs", I estimate that welfare receipt has limited effects on subsequent health-related outcomes. Because Canadian healthcare is free and universal, these findings are unrelated to health insurance. An exception is pharmaceuticals, which are free for welfare recipients but not for non-recipients — consistent with this, welfare receipt strongly increases pharmaceutical use, implying that incomplete insurance limits medication among those excluded from welfare.

ALT The rapid rise in smartphone use among youth has raised concerns about its effects on well-being and learning. Using administrative and survey data with an event-study design, I show that banning smartphones in middle schools has no average effect on education or mental health but masks important gender differences. Bans reduce psychological health care use among girls, lower bullying for both genders, and improve girls’ GPAs and academic track placement, especially among those from disadvantaged backgrounds. These results suggest smartphone bans can be a low-cost policy to improve outcomes, particularly for girls.

ALT This study provides new insights on the expression of bias through disparate treatment of students by race. Specifically, I examine racial discrepancies in teachers’ evaluations of student achievement, conditional on standardized test achievement. After correcting for measurement error in standardized test scores, results indicate that teachers evaluate Black students as higher achieving than White students with the same standardized test performance. This finding contrasts with previous research on Black-White teacher assessment gaps outside of the US. These results are consistent with multiple potential mechanisms, such as teachers holding lower expectations for Black students or bias embedded in standardized tests.

ALT Utilizing comprehensive administrative data from Brazil, we investigate the impact of peer effects on wages, considering both within-gender and cross-gender dynamics. Since the average productivity of both individuals and their peers is unobservable, we estimate these values using worker fixed effects while accounting for occupational and firm sorting. Our findings reveal that within-gender peer effects have approximately twice the influence of cross-gender peer effects on wages for both men and women. Furthermore, we observe a reduction in the disparity between these two types of peer effects in settings characterized by greater gender equality.

ALT This paper examines the economic costs of absenteeism from acute illness, which reduces labor market participation and burdens workers and firms. I extend a search, matching, and bargaining framework to incorporate medical care use, illness dynamics, health capital, and employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI). Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), I estimate the model and find that acute illness lowers productivity, raises medical expenditures, and reduces welfare. Counterfactual analyses show subsidizing health capital improves total welfare. Moreover, while both a universal ESHI mandate and a penalty-based policy expand coverage, the penalty-based approach yields greater welfare gains.

ALT Occupational licenses are not easily portable across states or national borders, creating labor market frictions for migrant workers. This study examines whether expedited licensing programs reduce these frictions for military spouses, a group of tied migrants who frequently relocate across states. I find that following the programs, the employment rate significantly increased among military spouses who recently moved across states. Consequently, military spouses in licensed occupations earned more from work and received less unemployment compensation in the year of migration. These findings highlight expedited licensure as an effective policy tool for reducing occupational licensing barriers associated with interstate migration.

ALT This paper examines the causal impact of retirement on social capital using nationally representative Australian panel data. Exploiting the eligibility age for the Age Pension, we find that retirement significantly enhances social capital by increasing social connectedness and community involvement. These gains improve physical and mental health, with effects comparable to those of physical activity. However, older individuals’ perceptions of social relationships remain unchanged. Our findings highlight a key policy tradeoff: while raising the retirement age may boost labor force participation, it may reduce opportunities for meaningful social engagement and, in turn, undermine the health of older adults.