Impact of a Higher Minimum Wage on Enrollment of SNAP

This paper investigates the effect that minimum wage policy has on enrollment in public assistance programs, specifically the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, SNAP. If raising the minimum wage decreases enrollment in SNAP, this could uncover a method to reduce spending without eliminating programs. Using a time-demeaned model to account for fixed effects, I take advantage of the variation in the minimum wage in the 50 states between 1998 and 2014. I estimated that on average an increase in minimum wage in a prior year results in a decrease in SNAP participation by 3.95%

Congenital Chagas Disease in the United States: Cost Savings Through Maternal Screening

Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, is transmitted by insect vectors through transfusions, transplants, insect feces in food, and from mother to child during gestation. Congenital infection could perpetuate Chagas disease indefinitely, even in countries without vector transmission. An estimated 30% of infected persons will develop lifelong, potentially fatal, cardiac or digestive complications. Treatment of infants with benznidazole is highly efficacious in eliminating infection. This work evaluates the costs of maternal screening and infant testing and treatment of Chagas disease in the United States. We constructed a decision-analytic model to find the lower cost option, comparing costs of testing and treatment, as needed, for mothers and infants with the lifetime societal costs without testing and the consequent morbidity and mortality due to lack of treatment or late treatment. We found that maternal screening, infant testing, and treatment of Chagas disease in the United States are cost saving for all rates of congenital transmission greater than 0.001% and all levels of maternal prevalence above 0.06% compared with no screening program. Newly approved diagnostics make universal screening cost saving with maternal prevalence as low as 0.008%. The present value of lifetime societal savings due to screening and treatment is about $634 million saved for every birth year cohort. The benefits of universal screening for T. cruzi as part of routine prenatal testing far outweigh the program costs for all U.S. births

Congenital Chagas Disease in the United States: The Effect of Commercially Priced Benznidazole on Costs and Benefits of Maternal Screening

Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, is transmitted by insect vectors, and through transfusions, transplants, insect feces in food, and mother to child during gestation. An estimated 30% of infected persons will develop lifelong, potentially fatal cardiac or digestive complications. Treatment of infants with benznidazole is highly efficacious in eliminating infection. This work evaluates the costs of maternal screening and infant testing and treatment for Chagas disease in the United States, including the cost of commercially available benznidazole. We compare costs of testing and treatment for mothers and infants with the lifetime societal costs without testing and consequent morbidity and mortality due to lack of treatment or late treatment. We constructed a decision-analytic model, using one tree that shows the combined costs for every possible mother–child pairing. Savings per birth in a targeted screening program are $1,314, and with universal screening,$105 per birth. At current screening costs, universal screening results in $420 million in lifetime savings per birth-year cohort. We found that a congenital Chagas screening program in the United States is cost saving for all rates of congenital transmission greater than 0.001% and all levels of maternal prevalence greater than 0.06% compared with no screening program

Art, Artifact, Archive: African American Experiences in the Nineteenth Century

Angelo Scarlato’s extraordinary and vast collection of art and artifacts related to the Civil War, and specifically to the Battle of Gettysburg, the United States Colored Troops, slavery and the African American struggle for emancipation, citizenship and freedom has proved to be an extraordinary resource for Gettysburg College students. The 2012-14 exhibition in Musselman Library’s Special Collections, curated by Lauren Roedner ’13, entitled Slaves, Soldiers, Citizens: African American Artifacts of the Civil War Era and its corresponding catalogue provided a powerful and comprehensive historical narrative of the period. This fall, students in my course at Gettysburg College “Art and Public Policy”—Diane Brennan, Maura Conley, Abigail Conner, Nicole Conte, Victoria Perez-Zetune, Savannah Rose, Kaylyn Sawyer, Caroline Wood and Zoe Yeoh—selected additional objects of material and print culture from Angelo’s private collection and drew from Lauren’s expertise for the exhibition Art, Artifact, Archive: African American Experiences in the Nineteenth Century to investigate public representations of a newly freed population as well as their more personal perspectives. [excerpt]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1015/thumbnail.jp

Three Essays in Applied Public Economics: Applications to Vulnerable Populations

In this dissertation, I study the effects of state and federal programs and policies aimed to help vulnerable populations. In the second chapter, I estimate the effect of immigration enforcement on prenatal safety net programs and birth outcomes. I compare participation in prenatal WIC and Medicaid between likely undocumented mothers and US born non-Latina mothers. I find an increase in immigration enforcement lowers participation in Medicaid but has a null effect on WIC participation. Because undocumented people are ineligible for Medicaid except in special circumstances, using Medicaid to pay for the delivery of a newborn may signal a person's immigration status. WIC eligibility does not have any restrictions regarding a person's citizenship or legal status. This may explain the chilling effect observed in Medicaid but not in WIC. I find that undocumented mothers reduce their prenatal care. There are also improvements in infant birth weight and a decline in undocumented women's birth rate. This suggests positive selection into birth when immigration enforcement intensifies. Chapter three examines the effect of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on living arrangements. DACA provides temporary relief from deportation for undocumented immigrants who arrived to the United States as children. DACA recipients receive a social security number, work permit, and may obtain a driver's license in their home state. Previous studies have found that DACA improves beneficiaries' economic well-being. Since housing decisions are closely linked to economic security, I compare DACA eligible and ineligible immigrants to estimate changes in living arrangements. I find DACA increases the incidence of living with a parent in a rented home by 1.9 percentage points and lowers the incidence of living with other family members by 2.4 percentage points. The economic benefits and mobility that DACA provides along with the lowered fear of deportation may change beneficiaries' living arrangements but does not increase the likelihood of moving into a home without a family member. In chapter four, I re-examine the effect of Naloxone Access Laws on opioid mortality. In response to the opioid crisis, states adopted laws increasing the availability of Naloxone, an overdose reversal drug. The theoretical effect of these policies is ambiguous due to the potential for moral hazard. The current literature contains mixed results when using a difference-in-differences model to estimate the effect of Naloxone Access Laws on mortality. I revisit these studies and establish that the discrepancies in the findings stem from both different time periods studied and the policy definitions used. I then make a methodological correction by adjusting for the staggered policy adoption and find that Naloxone Access Laws increase opioid mortality by 39%. Finally, I discuss the validity of the results. A sharp rise in opioid mortality preceded the adoption of Naloxone Access Laws. Therefore the estimated results from a difference-in-differences model will not be causal. I propose using a contiguous county-border model to establish the causal effect of Naloxone Access Laws. The findings from this chapter emphasize the challenges of establishing causal estimates when evaluating public policies that inherently are not exogenous