TESTING ECONOMIC MODELS OF HOUSEHOLD RESOURCE ALLOCATION

This dissertation examines the role of household resource allocation on individual human capital accumulation. The main contributions of the dissertation is providing evidence first that families play an active role on individual investment and second that cost and benefit within the household are not shared evenly among members. First, using multiple births as an exogenous shift in family size, I investigate the impact of the number of children on child investment and child well-being. Using data from the 1980 US Census Five-Percent Public Use Micro Sample, 2SLS results demonstrate that parents facing a change in family size reallocate resources in a way consistent with Becker's Quantity and Quality model. A larger family generated by a twin on a later birth reduces the likelihood that older children attend private school, increases the likelihood that children share a bedroom, reduces the mother's labor force participation, and increases the likelihood that parents divorce. The impact of family size on measures of child wellbeing, such as educational attainment, the probability of not dropping out of school and teen pregnancy is, however, less clear. The results do indicate that for both measures of child investment and child well being, the 2SLS estimates are statistically distinguishable from OLS estimates indicating an omitted variables bias in the single equation model. Second, using data from the National Health Interview (NHIS) and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), I examine the effect of female employment and predictors of obesity for married men and women. I use the fact that there is a clear relationship between female labor force participation (FLFP) and age structure of children in the household in order to identify the impact of FLFP. When children are small mothers tend to stay at home; later when children start kinder garden or school mothers are able to come back to paid activities. I find that for married men with less than high school, female employment raises their Body Mass Index (BMI). However I do not find evidence that female employment increases women's BMI or the likelihood of obesity

The automated optimisation of a coarse-grained protein force field using free energy data

Atomistic models provide a detailed representation of molecular systems, but are sometimes inadequate for simulations of large systems over long timescales. Coarse-grained models enable accelerated simulations by reducing the number of degrees of freedom, at the cost of reduced accuracy. New optimisation processes to parameterise these models could improve their quality and range of applicability. We present an automated approach for the optimisation of the SIRAH coarse-grained protein force field. A full optimisation of the SIRAH water model was performed using ForceBalance, based on experimental water properties. We implemented hydration free energy gradients as a new target for force field optimisation and applied it successfully to optimise the uncharged side-chains and the protein backbone. We managed to closely reproduce hydration free energies of atomistic models and improve agreement with experiment. An attempt was made for the optimisation of charged coarse-grained protein side-chains. Hydration free energies were improved, but at the expense of an over-fitted model, which led to an over-estimation of protein interactions. Simulations of folded proteins in water result in improved protein stabilities for the new model. We compute the opening/closing event of a Glutamate receptor binding domain using umbrella sampling simulations, showing a clear improvement on the estimation of the PMF with previously reported studies on atomistic systems, for the ligand-free and glutamate-bound states

Intergroup contact and nation building: evidence from military service in Spain

We study the long-term effects of intergroup contact on nation building by exploiting a national lottery that randomly allocated conscripts to different military areas across Spain. For men born in regions featuring a strong regional identity, we find that being assigned to military service in a region different from one's region of birth substantially increases self-identification as Spanish and reduces the likelihood of voting for a regionalist party. Moreover, in support of intergroup contact as the main mechanism behind these results, we find that movers are more likely to have friends from another region than nonmoversCáceres-Delpiano gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education (Grant ECO2009-11165 and ECO2019-00419-001), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MDM 2014-0431), and the Comunidad de Madrid MadEco-CM (S2015/HUM-3444). De Moragas acknowledges the support of the Spanish Ministry of Education (Grant PGC2018-099415-B-100 MICINN/FEDER/UE) and Fundación Ramón Areces. Facchini gratefully acknowledges financial support from the General Secretariat for Research-Government of Catalonia (SGR2017-1301) and the Spanish Ministry of Education (PID2019-104619RB-C43)

The automated optimisation of a coarse-grained force field using free energy data

Atomistic models provide a detailed representation of molecular systems, but are sometimes inadequate for simulations of large systems over long timescales. Coarse-grained models enable accelerated simulations by reducing the number of degrees of freedom, at the cost of reduced accuracy. New optimisation processes to parameterise these models could improve their quality and range of applicability. We present an automated approach for the optimisation of coarse-grained force fields, by reproducing free energy data derived from atomistic molecular simulations. To illustrate the approach, we implemented hydration free energy gradients as a new target for force field optimisation in ForceBalance and applied it successfully to optimise the un-charged side-chains and the protein backbone in the SIRAH protein coarse-grain force field. The optimised parameters closely rejproduced hydration free energies of atomistic models and gave improved agreement with experimen