American Economic Journal

Refugee Benefit Cuts

This paper analyzes the effects of Denmark’s Start Aid welfare reform that targets refugees. Implemented in 2002, it enables us to study not only the reform’s immediate effects but also its longer-term consequences and its repeal a decade later. The reform-induced large transfer cuts led to an increase in employment rates, but only in the short run. Overall, the reform increased poverty rates and led to a rise in subsistence crime. Moreover, local demand conditions generate substantial heterogeneity in the reform’s effects on immediate and longer-term employment.

14 May 2024

American Economic Journal

Unintended Consequences of Welfare Cuts on Children and Adolescents

This paper studies the effects of a large welfare benefit reduction on the children in the affected families. The welfare cut targeted adult refugees who received residency in Denmark, and it reduced their disposable income by 30 percent on average over the first five years. We show that children exposed to the welfare cut during preschool and school-age obtained lower GPAs, experienced reduced wellbeing and overall education levels, and suffered lower employment and earnings as adults. Children in their teens at exposure faced large increases in conviction probabilities for violent and property crimes.

13 May 2024

American Economic Journal – Policy

Attendance Boundary Policies and the Limits to Combating School Segregation

What is the efficacy of redrawing school attendance boundaries as a desegregation policy? To provide causal evidence on this question, we employ novel data with unprecedented detail on the universe of Danish children and exploit changes in attendance boundaries over time. Households defy reassignments to schools with lower socioeconomic status. There is a strong social gradient in defiance, as resourceful households are more sensitive to the student composition of new schools. We simulate school assignment policies and find that boundary changes that reassign areas to a highly disadvantaged school are ineffective at altering the socioeconomic composition at the disadvantaged school.

3 February 2024

Social Science & Medicine

From unequal injuries to unequal learning? Socioeconomic gradients in childhood concussions and the impact on children’s academic performance

Highlights • Child concussion rates are higher among families with lower earnings and education. • Concussion incidence and reading test scores are negatively correlated. • Difference-in-differences model controls for selection and identifies a causal effect. • The negative correlation is driven by selection and does not reflect a causal effect. • Social gradients in concussions do not lead to inequality in academic performance.

30 December 2023

Psychological Medicine

Suicides, drug poisonings, and alcohol-related deaths cluster with health and social disadvantage in 4.1 million citizens from two nations

Deaths of despair are a marker of inequalities in countries beyond the U.S. with robust social-safety nets, nationwide healthcare, and strong pharmaceutical regulations. These deaths cluster within a highly disadvantaged population segment identifiable within health- and social-service systems.

3 November 2023

The journal of human resources

How Does Visitation Affect Incarcerated Persons and Their Families?

1 November 2023

European Psychiatry

Changes in anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the European population

26 October 2023

Labour Economics

Access to language training and the local integration of refugees

15 October 2023

Children and Youth Services Review

Introducing a New Data Resource for Comparative Child Welfare Research: The Rockwool-Duke Global Child Welfare Database

9 September 2023

The Journal of Economic Inequality

Income developments in the great recession Status for the Danish Prime-age Working Population a Decade Following the Onset of the Financial Crisis.”

8 September 2023

Demographic Research

Partial Fertility Recuperation in Spain Two Years After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

5 September 2023

Canadian Review of Sociology

Sources of mathematics self-efficacy: The interactive role of parental education and perceptions of teachers

3 September 2023

Acta Sociologica

Criminal justice involvement, transition to fatherhood, and the demographic foundation of the intergenerational transmission of crime

30 August 2023

Justice Quarterly

Court Delays and Criminal Recidivism: Results from Danish Administrative Data and a Policy Reform

11 August 2023

European Journal of Public Health

The association between type of conception through medically assisted reproduction and childhood cognition: A Danish population-wide cohort study

22 July 2023

Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health

Psychosocial working conditions and sickness absence among younger employees in Denmark

11 July 2023

Journal of Labor Economics

Permanent Residency and Refugee Immigrants’ Skill Investment

20 June 2023

Sociological Methods & Research

Lagged Dependent Variable Predictors, Classical Measurement Error, and Path Dependency: The Conditions Under Which Various Estimators are Appropriate

7 June 2023

An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Changes in Conception Rates, Not in Pregnancy-Related Behavior, Likely Caused Decline in Pre-Term Births During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

4 June 2023

The Review of Economics and Statistics

Language Training and Refugees’ Integration

We evaluate a Danish reform focused on improving language training for those granted refugee status on or after January 1, 1999. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design we find a significant, permanent, positive effect on earnings. This effect emerged after completion of language classes and was accompanied by additional schooling and higher probability of working in complex jobs, consistent with language training, rather than other minor aspects of the reform, produced the results.

1 June 2023