Essays on the Economics of Crime, Gender, and Health

Abstract

In this dissertation I study the impacts of large government programs on crime and health outcomes. I also run an online experiment about the use of professional titles to elicit perceptions of experts cited in major news outlets and to test whether these perceptions vary across genders. In the first chapter, I examine the effects of large changes in cash availability on crime. South Africa has a large social safety net comprised of numerous cash transfer programs, called social grants, that are paid on a monthly basis. Prior to late 2018, these social grants were paid mostly in cash at grant disbursement locations called paypoints. Using a differences-in-differences (DiD) strategy, I analyze the effects of the temporary increase in cash availability on crime by comparing crimes on social grant payment dates in small geographical areas, police precincts, between areas with differing numbers of cash disbursement locations. The results suggest a small decrease in crime the day prior to social grant payments, and small increases the day of payments or the day after payments, depending on the empirical specification. These results are consistent with perpetrators potentially delaying their labor supply of crime until the widely publicized cash grant payment days, an anticipation effect, and increasing their labor supply of crime on or after payment days consistent with a loot effect, resulting from increased cash and purchased goods availability. Chapter two investigates whether there exists a credibility penalty for female experts compared to male experts when major news outlets forgo the use of professional titles, such as ``Dr." that serve as an information signal on the level of their training. Given the extensive literature on gender and racial bias in media reporting and professional and academic environments, the practice of abstaining from the use of professional titles may reinforce and even exacerbate these biases. In this co-authored analysis, we test for differential effects by conducting an online experiment that presented survey respondents with news articles holding constant content, but varying the gender and title of the cited experts and asked them to rate the expert's credibility. Our design enables between-subject and within-subject analysis. While we are able to detect a positive credibility effect of using professional titles, we are unable to distinguish a differential credibility impact across gender. Finally, in chapter three I estimate the effects of a large-scale national physician provision program in Brazil on birth outcomes. Given the risk to mothers of injury and disease associated with childbirth that may affect the health of the newborn, as well as the myriad of complications that may arise that could threaten the health of the fetus, increasing access to and quality of medical care may have substantial effects on birth outcomes. The Mais Medicos Program (PMM) focused on equalizing physicians per capita as well as generally increasing the number of physicians across the country. Beginning in late 2013 and an executive branch initiative, the program placed almost 20,000 physicians by 2016, predominantly from Cuba, throughout the country. Using vital statistics data of the universe of births in Brazil from 2006 to 2017, I estimate the effect of increasing the supply of primary care physicians on birth weight using both a differences-in-differences and an instrumental variables approach. I find that PMM resulted in higher average birth weight for children throughout Brazil. However, I find no improvement on the incidence of low birth weight or any weight effects for those living in rural parts of the country. Hence, these results imply PMM did not affect the most vulnerable pregnancies.