摘要：
The first chapter of this dissertation is titled "Childhood Family Income and Adult Outcomes: Evidence from the EITC." Many researchers have explored the impact of family income on children by utilizing structural changes in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). However, most of this previous research focuses on childhood outcomes, such as effects on the child's performance in school or effects on health and behavior. This paper is one of the few that estimates the effect of childhood family income on adult outcomes. In order to overcome the confounding relationship between childhood family income and future employment, this paper uses the structural changes made to the EITC, specifically the substantial changes made during the 1980's and 1990's, as an exogenous income shock. The main covariate of interest, maximum potential family EITC payments is constructed using the NBER TAXSIM calculator. This chapter provides evidence that casts doubt on the previous findings that the structural changes in the EITC, since it's inception and through the early 2000's, had a positive overall impact on long run educational and labor market outcomes. Replicating the methodology used in Bastian and Michelmore (forthcoming) on the combined NLSY and PSID sample produced overall effects that were much smaller in magnitude than their analysis. In addition, these effects seem to be driven by individuals in the PSID who are most likely to have unobserved characteristics that would bias the estimates positively. However, there are similar coefficients estimated for those in the 13 to 18 age range for those in the PSID and the NLSY. Thus, while the analysis on the overall PSID sample did produce some consistency with Bastian and Michelmore (forthcoming), the findings of positive effects for different subgroups and no effects for the subgroups in which they saw the largest responses call into question the robustness of their analysis. Evidence is also presented that indicates that the lack of
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