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Recent Scientific Accomplishments Kearney’s research centers on the economics of social policy with a particular focus on the impact of government programs on the choices and outcomes of low-income populations. Within this broad area of focus, Kearney concentrates on two separate topics: (1) anti-poverty programs, with an emphasis on women and children; and (2) gambling behavior and risk preferences, with an emphasis on the application of state lotteries. Kearney also conducts research on labor market inequality and social mobility. Kearney has published work on the impact of welfare reform on fertility outcomes in the Journal of Human Resources. Building on this line of research, she is conducting a current project (joint with Philip Levine, Wellesley College) evaluating how the expansion of Medicaid-funded family planning services during the 1990s affected individual sexual behavior and birth and abortion outcomes. Kearney’s work with colleague Mark Duggan using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) demonstrates that there are now more children living in households with SSI income than there are children living in households with welfare income. Their findings suggest that SSI is an effective anti-poverty program for participating families. Kearney’s research on gambling has been published in the Journal of Public Economics and the National Tax Journal. In one paper she investigated how the introduction of state lotteries and instant scratch-off tickets affect the expenditure patterns of households. Some of her work investigates the nature of consumer demand for gamblers. She has current work on this topic with Jon Guryan of the University of Chicago studying perceptions of randomness among lottery gamblers. Kearney has also completed a series of three working papers with co-authors David Autor (M.I.T.) and Larry Katz (Harvard University) revisiting the question of wage inequality over recent decades, arguing that recent patterns are not adequately explained by either a ‘unicausal’ skill-biased technical change explanation or a revisionist explanation focused primarily on minimum wages and mechanical labor force compositional effects. Instead, it can be partially reconciled by a modified version of the skill-biased technological change story that generates a polarization of skill demands, which benefits earners near the tails of the earnings distribution, but not in the middle. Kearney is currently co-investigator on two R03s from NICHD. With MPRC colleague Mark Duggan (P.I.), she is assessing the effect of the SSI program on children receiving benefits. With Philip Levine (P.I.), she is evaluating the effectiveness of the expansion of Medicaid-funded family planning services on sexual behavior and birth and abortion outcomes. Building on her work on anti-poverty programs, Kearney is beginning a new line of research on variation in patterns of Medicaid expenditures with Mark Duggan. Kearney also has ongoing projects to understand how individuals make choices with respect to gambling and decisions under uncertainty in general. In future work with Philip Levine, Kearney plans to investigate cross-country differences in an attempt to understand why teenage pregnancy, and unintended pregnancy and abortion in general, are so much higher in the United States than in other industrialized countries. | ||||||||
Maryland Population Research Center
0124N Cole Student Activities Building (#162)
College Park, MD 20742
Phone: 301-405-6403
Fax: 301-405-5743