Melinda Sandler Morrill Ph.D.

Morrill's research interests are in applied microeconomics, with a focus on topics in labor economics, economic demography and health economics.  Her dissertation research considered women’s labor supply and its implications for the family.  One paper uses an instrumental variables strategy to overcome the endogeneity of women's labor supply in order to estimate the effect of maternal employment on children's health.  Her dissertation also includes a co-authored paper with Judith Hellerstein that demonstrates that over the past century fathers have increasingly transmitted occupation-specific human capital to their daughters in response to the changing opportunities for women in the labor market.  Morrill is currently working on several topics in divorce, children's health, and aging.  One project explores how marital stability is affected by macroeconomic cycles.  She is also involved in a large project aimed at measuring how aspects of the judicial process may affect divorce settlements and subsequent outcomes for families.  In aging, Morrill is involved in a large-scale project evaluating the efficacy of retirement planning seminars and the role of knowledge in retirement planning.  She is also exploring issues in public sector retiree health care provision.  Other projects include an analysis of how a child's relative age may affect ADHD diagnosis and treatment rates.  Morrill received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland in the summer of 2008.  She joined the faculty at North Carolina State University in the Department of Economics in the fall of 2008.