Melissa Kearney

Associate Professor of Economics

Biography

Professor Melissa S. Kearney received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 and her BA from Princeton University in 1996. She studied on a National Science Graduate Research Fellowship. She is a Research Associate at the NBER. Past positions include Fellow at Brookings Institution and Assistant Professor at Wellesley College. Much of her research focuses on issues of public policy, in particular on the effect of government programs on individuals and households and on issues related to families and children. She also has research interests in household decision-making with regard to risk and uncertainty, saving, and gambling. She teaches in the area of Public Economics.

Areas of Interest:
public policy, poverty, inequality, social policy, children and families, economics of fertility, teen childbearing, issues in gambling, individual perceptions of risk and uncertainty and decision-making

Published Papers

Date	Title
August 1, 2010	Is Lottery Gambling Addictive? with Guryan, Jonathan American Economic Journal - Economic Policy, August 2010, 2(3).
March 1, 2010	Product Recalls, Imperfect Information, and Spillover Effects: Lessons from the Consumer Response to the 2007 Toy Recalls Forthcoming, Review of Economics and Statistics
November 1, 2009	Reducing Unplanned Pregnancies through Medicaid Family Planning Services
October 1, 2009	Subsidized Contraception, Fertility, and Sexual Behavior with Levine, Phil Review of Economics and Statistics, 2009 October 1: 91(1): 137.
September 1, 2008	Teen Pregnancy Prevention as an Anti-Poverty Intervention: A Review of the Evidence Prepared for NBER conference volume “Targeting Investments in Children: Fighting Poverty when Resources Are Limited,” editors Phillip Levine and David Zimmerman
July 1, 2008	Parental Education and Parental Time with Children with Hurst, Erik; Guryan, Jonathan Journal of Economic Perspectives 22(3), Summer 2008, 23-46
May 1, 2008	Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Re-Assessing the Revisionists with Autor, David; Katz, Larry Review of Economics and Statistics 90(2), May 2008, 300-323
March 1, 2008	Gambling at Lucky Stores: Evidence from State Lottery Sales with Guryan, Jonathan American Economic Review 98 (1), March 2008, 458-73
January 1, 2008	Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Early Childbearing with Levine, Phil An Economics Perspective on the Problems of Disadvantaged Youth, NBER conference volume, 2008
September 1, 2007	The Impact of Child SSI Enrollment on Household Outcomes: Evidence from the SIPP with Duggan, Mark Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Fall, 2007, 861-886.
September 1, 2006	Intergenerational Mobility for Women and Minorities in the United States Future of Children, Fall 2006
May 1, 2006	The Polarization of the U.S. Labor Market with Autor, David; Katz, Lawrence American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2006, 96(2).
June 1, 2005	The Economic Winners and Losers of Legalized Gambling National Tax Journal, June 2005, 58: 281-302.
January 1, 2005	State Lotteries and Consumer Behavior Journal of Public Economics, 2005, 89: 2269-2299.
January 1, 2004	Is There an Effect of Incremental Welfare Benefits on Fertility Behavior? A Look at the Family Cap Journal of Human Resources, 2004, 39(2): 295-325.

Working Papers

Date	Title
January 3, 2012	Income Inequality and Early, Non-Marital Childbearing: An Economic Exploration of the "Culture of Despair"
September 28, 2011	House Prices and Birth Rates: The Impact of the Real Estate Market on the Decision to Have a Baby coauthored with Lisa Dettling
October 15, 2010	Making Savers Winners: An Overview of Prize-Linked Savings Products
September 1, 2008	Rising Wage Inequality: The Role of Composition and Prices with Autor, David; Katz, Larry NBER working paper 11628
--	Estimating Preferences Under Risk: The Case of State Lottery Bettors Ph.D. thesis, MIT Department of Economics

Teaching - Spring 2012

Course	Syllabus	WWW
ECON 397: Honors Thesis

Teaching - Fall 2011

Course	Syllabus	WWW
ECON 396: Independent Honors Study

Teaching - Spring 2011

Course	Syllabus	WWW
ECON 454: Public Finance and Public Policy
ECON 752: Graduate Public Economics II

Teaching - Spring 2010

Course	Syllabus	WWW
ECON 454: Public Finance and Public Policy

Teaching - Fall 2009

Course	Syllabus	WWW
ECON 326: Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis
ECON 878: Workshop in Labor Economics

Teaching - Spring 2009

Course	Syllabus	WWW
ECON 752: Graduate Public Economics II

Tydings Hall 3115L

3105 Tydings Hall
Department of Economics
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Phone: 301-405-6202

Office Hours:
Thursday
10:30 am-12:30 pm