Essays on Human Capital Disruption

Abstract

This dissertation is comprised of three essays related to disruptions in human capital production. In the first essay, the impact of maternal depression on child cognitive and non-cognitive measures for elementary school-aged children is estimated. After applying a bounding methodology to address the methodological concern of endogeneity, maternal depression negatively affects test scores and reduces a child's ability to learn in the classroom environment, self-control, and interpersonal skills, and increases problem behavior. The second essay examines the effect of earlier school start times on classroom outcomes of fifth grade children. The panel of data follows the same children over time, allowing for a methodology that nets out time-invariant unobserved characteristics that might be influencing results. Findings suggest small movements in start time (1-29 minutes earlier) have no impact on cognitive or non-cognitive outcomes, but large movements (60 minutes earlier or more) lead to lower math scores for girls, lower reading scores for boys, and impaired performance in socioemotional measures for both genders. The last essay measures the effect of "aging out"� of the dependent coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that turning 26 leads to increases in labor force participation and directly purchased private insurance for young men and increases in health insurance plan dissatisfaction for both young men and women.