Working Papers
"The Impact of Student Loan Repayment Reform on Schooling, Work, and Borrowing Decisions of Men"
(Job Market Paper, Updated October 2017)
A series of changes in U.S. policy on student loan repayment plans occurred between 1993 and 2015. Before the changes in policy, student loan debts were not forgiven and borrowers were expected to repay the full amount of debt. After the changes in policy, borrowers were given options to relieve a portion of their debt, with the portion being a function of income and sector of employment (public and non-profit vs. private). To study the effect of changes in student loan repayment plans on schooling, work, and borrowing decisions, I propose and structurally estimate a life-cycle dynamic discrete choice model. My simulation results imply that changes in student loan repayment plans will increase total years of postsecondary schooling by 10%, from 2.07 years to 2.28 years. In addition, 0.5% of the population who would have worked in the private sector will shift to the public sector, and 14% of student loan borrowers will be forgiven part of their debt.
"The Impact of Housing Wealth on College Outcomes in the Housing Boom and Bust"
Housing wealth constitutes the majority of family resources to support children's postsecondary education. In order to identify the causal effect of housing wealth on college outcomes, I take advantage of the recent housing boom and bust as an exogenous source of variation. I find that a $10,000 increase in home equity increases the probability of initial college enrollment by 0.19 percentage points. Housing wealth has a larger impact on college enrollment during the housing bust than during the housing boom. The asymmetry is only economically and statistically significant for families with lower annual incomes. According to my estimates, the decline in home equity during the housing bust would have caused a drop in college enrollment of 3.5 percentage points, or 9.6%, for families with income less than $70,000, other things equal. My results provide important implications for government financial aid policy. If the goal of the government is to maximize the college enrollment impact of a given level of financial assistance, it is useful for the government to implement a need-based counter-cyclical financial aid policy.
Work in Progress
"The Long-Term Effect of Childhood Kindergarten Enrollment on Educational and Social Outcomes"
Over the period of 1935 to 1986, the United States witnessed all 51 states initiating their own educational funding for kindergarten. Variation in the funding initiation date enables me to study the long-term effects of kindergarten on individuals' educational and social outcomes. I examined the Intent-To-Treat (ITT) effect as well as the Treatment-On-Treated (TOT) effect. According to my findings, kindergarten education improved educational achievement as well as labor market outcomes for both white males and blacks. However, such long-term effects for white females are not only small in magnitude, but also statistically insignificant. Comparing with existing literature, my paper contributes in analyzing the Treatment-On-Treated effect of kindergarten enrollment. Moreover, I compared different model specifications and applied them on larger data sets.