Evaluating Occupational Outcomes and Interventions in Schools

This dissertation consists of three distinct yet inter-related research papers in labor economics, each with relevance for public policy. The first chapter examines the role of wage differentials for caring work in explaining the gender wage gap. We find that both women and men face caring penalties that are small, about 2% for one standard deviation difference in caring. While women disproportionately work in caring jobs, it is unlikely that policies governing wages in the care sector could achieve pay equity between men and women. The second chapter evaluates the impact of state legislation on bullying in schools. I employ a difference-in-differences approach exploiting variation across states in the timing and type of law adopted using nationally representative surveys at the student and school levels. While I find no impact of the laws on bullying in high schools, bullying occurs most often in middle school. And impacts might vary by school type and legislation type. I also discuss current challenges to evaluating bullying legislation and provide recommendations for facilitating a conclusive assessment of whether state bullying laws work. The third chapter uses a field experiment to evaluate an intervention aimed at increasing participation in an academic assistance program. Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a widely used, but poorly evaluated, peer-tutoring program with low participation rates. We randomize encouragements to attend SI across a large student population. The resulting boost in participation allows us to estimate the per-session average causal impact of SI on grades for a subpopulation under certain assumptions

Who Cares – and Does It Matter? Measuring Wage Penalties for Caring Work

Economists and sociologists have proposed arguments for why there can exist wage penalties for work involving helping and caring for others, penalties borne disproportionately by women. Evidence on wage penalties is neither abundant nor compelling. We examine wage differentials associated with caring jobs using multiple years of Current Population Survey (CPS) earnings files matched to O*NET job descriptors that provide continuous measures of 'assisting and caring' and 'concern' for others across all occupations. This approach differs from prior studies that assume occupations either do or do not require a high level of caring. Cross-section and longitudinal analyses are used to examine wage differences associated with the level of caring, conditioned on worker, location, and job attributes. Wage level estimates suggest substantive caring penalties, particularly among men. Longitudinal estimates based on wage changes among job switchers indicate smaller wage penalties, our preferred estimate being a 2 percent wage penalty resulting from a one standard deviation increase in our caring index. We find little difference in caring wage gaps across the earnings distribution. Measuring mean levels of caring across the U.S. labor market over nearly thirty years, we find a steady upward trend, but overall changes are small and there is no evidence of convergence between women and men

Comparative analysis of anti-polyglutamine Fab crystals grown on Earth and in microgravity

Huntington's disease is one of nine neurodegenerative diseases caused by a polyglutamine (polyQ)-repeat expansion. An anti-polyQ antigen-binding fragment, MW1 Fab, was crystallized both on Earth and on the International Space Station, a microgravity environment where convection is limited. Once the crystals returned to Earth, the number, size and morphology of all crystals were recorded, and X-ray data were collected from representative crystals. The results generally agreed with previous microgravity crystallization studies. On average, microgravity-grown crystals were 20% larger than control crystals grown on Earth, and microgravity-grown crystals had a slightly improved mosaicity (decreased by 0.03°) and diffraction resolution (decreased by 0.2 Å) compared with control crystals grown on Earth. However, the highest resolution and lowest mosaicity crystals were formed on Earth, and the highest-quality crystal overall was formed on Earth after return from microgravity

Comparative analysis of anti-polyglutamine Fab crystals grown on Earth and in microgravity

Huntington's disease is one of nine neurodegenerative diseases caused by a polyglutamine (polyQ)-repeat expansion. An anti-polyQ antigen-binding fragment, MW1 Fab, was crystallized both on Earth and on the International Space Station, a microgravity environment where convection is limited. Once the crystals returned to Earth, the number, size and morphology of all crystals were recorded, and X-ray data were collected from representative crystals. The results generally agreed with previous microgravity crystallization studies. On average, microgravity-grown crystals were 20% larger than control crystals grown on Earth, and microgravity-grown crystals had a slightly improved mosaicity (decreased by 0.03°) and diffraction resolution (decreased by 0.2 Å) compared with control crystals grown on Earth. However, the highest resolution and lowest mosaicity crystals were formed on Earth, and the highest-quality crystal overall was formed on Earth after return from microgravity