Melissa Kearney

Last updated

Melissa Schettini Kearney
Born
Melissa Jean Schettini

1974 (age 49–50)
Education Princeton University (BA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
SpouseDaniel Patrick Kearney Jr.
Children3
Scientific career
FieldsEconomics
Institutions Wellesley College
Brookings Institution
University of Maryland
Doctoral advisor Jonathan Gruber and Joshua Angrist
Website www.econ.umd.edu/facultyprofile/kearney/melissa

Melissa Schettini Kearney (born 1974) is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park [1] and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). [2] She is also director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group; [3] a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution; a scholar affiliate and member of the board of the Notre Dame Wilson-Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO); [4] and a scholar affiliate of the MIT Abdul Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). [5] She has been an editorial board member of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy since 2019 and of the Journal of Economic Literature since 2017. [6] Kearney served as director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings from 2013 to 2015 [7] and as co-chair of the JPAL State and Local Innovation Initiative from 2015 to 2018. [8]

Contents

Education

Kearney graduated with highest honors from Princeton University with an A.B. in economics in 1996 and was inducted as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. [9] She received the Wolf Balleisen Memorial Award from for completing her 96-page long senior thesis, titled "The Economic Determinants of Age at First Birth in United States Metropolitan Areas: An Empirical Analysis", under the supervision of Anne Case. [10] She then pursued graduate studies with the support of a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a Harry S. Truman Scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received a PhD in economics in 2002 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "Essays on public policy and consumer choice: applications to welfare reform and state lotteries", under the supervision of Jonathan Gruber and Joshua Angrist. [11]

Research

Kearney's research focuses on issues related to social policy, poverty, and inequality. [12]

She has published numerous academic studies related to the economics of families and childbearing, including work on teen childbearing. Early in her career she published a study documenting that the controversial welfare family cap policy did not lead to a reduction in births, as intended. That policy has since been repealed in many states. More recently, in work with Phillip Levine, Kearney has published studies on the link between non-marital childbearing and childhood resources and proposed that teen childbearing is a consequence of the "economics of despair." In subsequent work published by the Brookings Institution, the authors document a similar finding with regard to high school drop-out behavior. On the issue of birth rates, a June 2020 Brookings study by Kearney and Levine predicted that the COVID pandemic would lead to a "baby bust," despite popular accounts suggesting there would be a pandemic "baby boom." [13]

In work with Phillip B. Levine, receiving attention in the popular media, she found that greater access to Sesame Street in the show's early days led to improved early educational outcomes for children. [14] Kearney and Levine also found that MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom programs led to a sizable reduction in teen births, accounting for as much as one-third of the overall decline in teen births in the year and a half following the show's introduction in 2009. [15]

Kearney has written extensively about income inequality, in both academic journals and policy essays, and has testified before the Congress on the topic of U.S. income inequality. [16] She co-authored a 2013 proposal for a Secondary Earner Tax Deduction that formed the basis for a tax proposal included in proposed legislation [17] and in Obama's proposed 2015 budget. [18] Kearney coauthored a 2020 study titled "Explaining the decline in the U.S. employment-to-population ratio: a review of the evidence” with former Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Katharine G. Abraham that examines employment trends for the period from 1999 to 2018 and seeks to explain the economic factors driving them. They conclude that labor demand factors are the most important drivers of the overall decline in the employment–population ratio among 25- to 54-year-olds over the period. [19]

In 2023 she published The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, showing how the decline of the institution of marriage has resulted in numerous of economic woes—problems that have harmed vulnerable populations, and documenting the significant benefits to children of being reared in two-parent households. [20] [21] [22]

Selected works

Policy work

Kearney was the fifth director - and first female director - of The Hamilton Project, following a prestigious group of former directors, all of whom played significant roles in public service, including founding director Peter Orszag, who went on to become director of the Congressional Budget Office and then director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Jason Furman, who subsequently served as chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and Douglas Elmendorf, who subsequently directed the Congressional Budget Office and is now Dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard University. [23] Under Kearney's leadership, the Hamilton Project worked on a variety of policy topics, including domestic poverty, labor market challenges and the future of work, and mass incarceration. Together with Benjamin H. Harris, Kearney co-edited the Hamilton Project book Policies to Address Poverty in America.

Kearney has served as Director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group since 2017. The Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) was launched in 2017 under the leadership of co-chairs Henry M. Paulson, Jr., former secretary of the Treasury and chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff and president of the University of North Carolina system. [24] Amy Ganz, formerly of Andreessen Horowitz, is the group’s deputy director. The AESG fosters the exchange of economic policy ideas and seeks to clarify the lines of debate on emerging economic issues while promoting bipartisan relationship-building among current and future generations of policy leaders in Washington.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Development economics</span> Economics of developing economies

Development economics is a branch of economics that deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural change but also on improving the potential for the mass of the population, for example, through health, education and workplace conditions, whether through public or private channels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic inequality</span> Distribution of income or wealth between different groups

Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Income distribution</span> How a countrys total GDP is distributed amongst its population

In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes economic inequality which is a concern in almost all countries around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birth rate</span> Total number of live births per 1,000 divided by time period

Birth rate, also known as natality, is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population for a given period divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; population counts from a census, and estimation through specialized demographic techniques such as population pyramids. The birth rate is used to calculate population growth. The estimated average population may be taken as the mid-year population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Income inequality in the United States</span>

Income inequality has fluctuated considerably in the United States since measurements began around 1915, moving in an arc between peaks in the 1920s and 2000s, with a 30-year period of relatively lower inequality between 1950 and 1980.

The Hamilton Project is an economic policy initiative within the Brookings Institution. It was originally launched in April 2006 by a combination of public policy makers, business people, academic leaders, and other former Clinton administration economists and experts. The Hamilton Project "seeks to advance America’s promise of opportunity, prosperity, and growth." It went dormant after U.S. President Barack Obama assumed office in 2009, because many of its members left to work for the White House, but in 2010, it was relaunched with Michael Greenstone as the new director.

<i>16 and Pregnant</i> American reality television series

16 and Pregnant is an American reality television series that aired from June 11, 2009, to July 1, 2014, on the cable channel MTV. It followed the stories of pregnant teenage girls in high school dealing with the hardships of teenage pregnancy. Each episode featured a different teenage girl, with the episode typically beginning when she is 4+1⁄2 – 8 months into her pregnancy. The episode typically ends when the baby is a few months old. The series is produced in a documentary format, with an animation on notebook paper showing highlights during each episode preceding the commercial breaks. 16 and Pregnant has spawned five spin-off series: Teen Mom, Teen Mom 2, Teen Mom 3, Teen Mom: Young and Pregnant, and 16 and Recovering, which premiered on September 1, 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nora Lustig</span> American economist

Nora Lustig is the Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics and the Director of the CEQ Institute at Tulane University, and a non-resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue.

Harry Joseph Holzer is an American economist, educator and public policy analyst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Graham</span> American economist

Carol Graham is the Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a College Park professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and the author of numerous books, papers and edited volume chapters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adriana Kugler</span> American economist (born 1969)

Adriana Debora Kugler is an American economist who serves as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She previously served as U.S. executive director at the World Bank, nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2022. She is a professor of public policy at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and is currently on leave from her tenured position at Georgetown. She served as the Chief Economist to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis from September 6, 2011 to January 4, 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betsey Stevenson</span> American economist

Betsey Ayer Stevenson is an economist and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Additionally, she is a fellow of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and servers on the board of the American Economic Association. The Obama Administration announced her appointment as a Member of the Council of Economic Advisers, a post she served from 2013 through 2015. She previously served as Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor under Secretary Hilda Solis from 2010 to 2011. Previously, she was an assistant professor of Business and Public Policy, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teenage pregnancy in the United States</span>

Teenage pregnancy in the United States occurs mostly unintentionally and out of wedlock but has been declining almost continuously since the 1990s. In 2022, the teenage birth rate fell to 13.5 per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, the lowest on record. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this decline is due to abstinence and the use of contraception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies</span>

The Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS) is a research center specialising in distribution, labor and social issues in Latin America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Autor</span> American economist

David H. Autor is an American economist, public policy scholar, and professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he also acts as co-director of the School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative. Although Autor has contributed to a variety of fields in economics his research generally focuses on topics from labor economics.

Joyce Penelope Jacobsen is a former President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Dr. Jacobsen was elected as the 29th President of Hobart College and the 18th President of William Smith College. Jacobsen is a scholar of economics, an award-winning teacher and an experienced administrator. She began her presidency on July 1, 2019. She is the first woman to serve as president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Hilary Hoynes is an economist and Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. She studies the impact of tax and transfer programs on low-income families, particularly single parent families. She was the 2014 winner of the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. She has been a co-editor of the American Economic Review, co-editor of American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Associate editor of Journal of Public Economics and Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Kasey Buckles is a professor of economics and concurrent professor of gender studies at the University of Notre Dame, Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and co-editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. She is known for her studies of the declining fertility of American women in recent years.

<i>After Piketty</i> 2017 economics essay collection edited by Boushey, DeLong, and Steinbaum

After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality is a 2017 collection of essays edited by the economists Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, and Marshall Steinbaum. The essays center on how to integrate inequality into economic thinking. Common themes are Thomas Piketty’s influence on academia and policy, the need for better wealth data, inequality in the United States, and the reasons for the process of wealth accumulation and rising inequality discussed by Piketty in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013). In the final entry, Piketty himself responds to the essays.

Susan N. Houseman is an American economist who is the vice president and director of research at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. She is also a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research Conference on Research on Income and Wealth, chairs the Technical Advisory Committee of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and co-directs the Labor Statistics Program at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

References

  1. ↑ "Melissa Kearney Named as ECON Moskowitz Professor | BSOS | Behavioral & Social Sciences College | University of Maryland". bsos.umd.edu. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  2. ↑ "Melissa Schettini Kearney". www.nber.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  3. ↑ "Melissa Kearney | Aspen Ideas". Aspen Ideas Festival. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  4. ↑ Dame, Marketing Communications: Web // University of Notre. "Our Advisory Board // Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities // University of Notre Dame". Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  5. ↑ "Affiliated Professors | The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab". www.povertyactionlab.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  6. ↑ "American Economic Association". www.aeaweb.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Melissa S. Kearney | The Hamilton Project". www.hamiltonproject.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  8. ↑ "Kearney, Melissa – INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON POVERTY – UW–Madison". www.irp.wisc.edu. April 2019. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  9. ↑ "Melissa Schettini Kearney - CV" (PDF).
  10. ↑ Schettini, Melissa (1996). "The Economic Determinants of Age at First Birth in United States Metropolitan Areas: An Empirical Analysis".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ↑ Kearney, Melissa Schettini (2002). Essays on public policy and consumer choice : applications to welfare reform and state lotteries (Thesis thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hdl:1721.1/8413.
  12. ↑ "Melissa Kearney". Wharton Business Radio. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  13. ↑ Kearney, Melissa S. (March 4, 2021). "Opinion | We Expect 300,000 Fewer Births Than Usual This Year". The New York Times.
  14. ↑ "This is how Sesame Street is improving children's education across the world". National Institute for Early Education Research. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  15. ↑ Kearney, Melissa; Levine, Phillip (January 15, 2014). "Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV's "16 and Pregnant" on Teen Childbearing". The Brookings Institution. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  16. ↑ "Testimony of Melissa S. Kearney | The Hamilton Project". www.hamiltonproject.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  17. ↑ "New Tax Legislation Would Increase the Return to Work for Low-and Middle-Income Working Families | The Hamilton Project". www.hamiltonproject.org. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  18. ↑ Admin, D. B. K. (February 2, 2015). "Obama adopts tax reform proposal from UMD economics professors - The Diamondback". dbknews.com. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  19. ↑ Leith, Lawrence H. "Why has the employment–population ratio declined in the United States? : Monthly Labor Review: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics". www.bls.gov. Retrieved November 16, 2021.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  20. ↑ Irwin, Neil (September 18, 2023). "New book shows economic downside of single parenting". Axios. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
  21. ↑ Rothfeld, Becca (October 14, 2023). "'The Two-Parent Privilege' gets caught in the trap of convention". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
  22. ↑ Gogoi, Pallavi (October 22, 2023). "Why children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way". National Public Radio. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
  23. ↑ "The Hamilton Project".
  24. ↑ "Aspen Institute Launches Economic Strategy Group".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.