Petra Persson

Last updated
Petra Persson
Born
Sweden
Academic career
Institution Stanford University
Field
Alma mater
Doctoral
advisor		 Navin Kartik
Website web.stanford.edu/~perssonp

Petra Persson is a Swedish economist and Assistant Professor in Economics at Stanford University. Persson is best known for her work in Public and Labour Economics where her research focuses on the interactions between family decisions and the policy environment. Specifically, Persson's research agenda is centered on studying government policy, family wellbeing, and informal institutions.

Contents

Persson is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research where she has produced notable research on paternity leave, family ruptures, and maternal health. Previously, Persson was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Predoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Women and Public Policy Program.

Education and career

Persson attended Stockholm University where she completed her B.A. in Political Science and Mathematics. Persson went on to complete her M.Sc. in Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and her Ph.D. in Economics at Columbia University. Persson wrote her PhD dissertation on relationships and communication, with chapters on social insurance and the marriage market, attention manipulation and information overload, and paternalism and libertarianism. [1]

Persson started her career as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs, followed by work at the World Bank as a Research Associate. Thereafter, Persson worked in postdoctoral fellow positions at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Stanford Center for International Development. She currently works as an Assistant Professor in Economics at Stanford University and is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. [2]

Professionally, Persson is a referee for the American Economic Journal, International Economic Review, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and the National Science Foundation. [3]

Teaching

In her current role as Assistant Professor at Stanford University, Persson teaches two PhD courses in the Department of Economics. In Economics 243, Persson examines household interactions with the social insurance system, including Social Security, health insurance, unemployment insurance, parental insurance, and targeting of social insurance. [4] In Economics 300, Persson teaches third-year PhD students on the development of a research paper. [5]

Academic affiliations

In her academic career, Persson has worked in a number of academic affiliate and fellow positions: [6]

Research

Persson has focused on interactions between family decisions and the policy environment, with her research centered around three key themes: [7]

  1. Family behavior and government policy
  2. Family behavior and family wellbeing
  3. Family behavior and informal institutions

Research on family behavior and government policy

Social Insurance and the Marriage Market (2018)

In her 2018 paper, “Social Insurance and the Marriage Market”, Persson analyzes how linking survivors’ insurance to marriage affects the marriage market. Using data from Sweden's elimination of survivors' insurance in 1989, Persson finds that eliminating survivors’ insurance lowers the long-run rate of entry into marriage from cohabitation, raises divorce rates for matched but unmarried couples, and increases assertiveness of matching for both unmatched and unmarried individuals. Further, Persson's findings suggest that marriage is commonly used as a mechanism for long-term financial planning. [8]

When Dad Stays Home (2019)

Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater assess, through a regression difference-in-differences (RD-DD) model, the impacts of paternal access to workplace flexibility on maternal postpartum health. Starting from Kim Weeden et al. (2016)'s finding that mothers face greater expectations to be "on call" for unforeseen domestic needs, [9] Persson's paper analyzes father's demand for workplace flexibility and the spillover effects on maternal wellbeing. Persson employs administrative data from Sweden's “Double Days” reform whereby both parents could use full-time leave benefits at the same time for up to 30 days. Through this analysis, Persson finds that increasing a father's temporal flexibility reduces the risk of the mother experiencing postpartum health complications. Moreover, Persson reaffirms that mothers currently bear a disproportionate burden from both career costs and a fathers' inability to respond to domestic shocks. [10]

Research on family behavior and family wellbeing

The Roots of Health Inequality and the Value of Intra-Family Expertise (2019)

Working with Yiqun Chen and Maria Polyakova, Persson explores the correlation between income and health, specifically through familial access to health expertise. Persson uses Sweden as an empirical setting, which has minimal inequality in terms of formal access to health care and still find strong socioeconomic gradients. Leveraging a quasi-experimental approach using non-parametric data from admissions lotteries to Swedish medical schools, Persson finds that access to intra-family medical expertise can explain 18% of the health-socioeconomic status (SES) difference. Persson further illustrates that access to intra-family expertise has a number of positive health impacts, increasing life expectancy, reducing lifestyle-related disease, and improving drug adherence. Persson further finds that the effects of lack of access to expertise are larger at lower income brackets, which is commonly where access to expertise is lower. [11]

Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation (2016)

In this American Economic Review paper, Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater study how exposure to maternal stress from familial ruptures affects later mental health. Specifically, they use empirical data from Sweden to isolate the in-utero effect of exposure to the death of a maternal loss compared to babies born who experience a loss within the first year of life. The authors find that this exposure is related to negative birth outcomes, increased risk of infant hospitalization, and increased take-up of ADHD medications during childhood and anti-anxiety and depression medications in adulthood. Their findings suggest large potential welfare gains by preventing fetal stress from family ruptures and socioeconomic factors. [12] After being accepted for publication, their preprint attracted criticism for allegedly omitting citations of similar studies. The paper was updated to include a reference to a similar paper before being published. [13] A comment criticised how the authors defined the control group, arguing that their definition risked finding a significant effect when there is none. [14] Persson and Rossin-Slater agreed with the critique and said that their results were mostly unchanged after they re-estimated them using the control group suggested by the comment. [15]

Human Trafficking and Regulating Prostitution (2018)

Through this paper with Samuel Lee, Persson studies the prostitution market with both voluntary and coerced workers. In this analysis, Persson attempts to identify a policy tool that would restore the benchmark outcome that would arise under a laissez-faire market without any coerced workers. Persson examines several policies, including decriminalization, criminalization of buyers or suppliers, and licensing, identifying that each policy is either ineffective against trafficking or harm voluntary suppliers. Persson ultimately highlights an alternative policy combining the Dutch and Swedish models, where prostitution is licensed and johns who buy sex from unlicensed prostitutes are criminalized, which would restore the benchmark outcome whereby trafficking is decreased and voluntary prostitution increases. [16]

Financing from Family and Friends (2015)

In reviewing the informal finance market, Persson investigates why borrowers tend to prefer formal financing despite family and friend investors being willing to accept below-market or negative returns. Persson finds that familial loans are associated with shadow costs and a lack of formal liability, which drives borrowers to formal lending markets. Specifically, Persson reviews the effects of social debt, where borrowers provide disproportionate favors to compensate lenders for providing capital at below-market rates. Persson's research observes that social lending intermediaries such as community lending pools can harness social capital while minimizing familial shadow costs. [17]

Academic publications

Publications list

YearTitlePublicationAuthor(s)
2016The Limits of Career Concerns in Federalism: Evidence from China Journal of the European Economic Association, 14(2): 338-374Petra Persson, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
2016Violence and Entry in Prostitution Markets: Implications for Prostitution Law Oxford University Press, Handbook of the Economics of Prostitution, ed. Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah.Petra Persson, Samuel Lee
2016Financing from Family and Friends Review of Financial Studies, 29(9): 2341-2386Petra Persson, Samuel Lee
2017Attention Manipulation and Information Overload Behavioural Public Policy, 2(1), 78-106.Petra Persson
2018Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation American Economic Review, 108(4-5): 1214-52Petra Persson, Maya Rossin-Slater
2020Social Insurance and the Marriage Market Journal of Political Economy, 128(1): 252-300Petra Persson
2020Does Medicine Run in the Family: Evidence from Three Generations of Physicians in Sweden British Medical Journal, 371:m4453Petra Persson, Maria Polyakova, Katja Hofmann, Anupam B. Jena
2022The Roots of Health Inequality and the Value of Intra-Family Expertise American Economic Journal, 14(3): 185-223Petra Persson, Yiqun Chen, Maria Polyakova
2022Human Trafficking and Regulating Prostitution American Economic Journal, 14(3): 78-127Petra Persson, Samuel Lee
2022A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Guideline Adherence and Access to Expertise American Economic Journal, 4(4): 507-526Petra Persson, Amy Finkelstein, Maria Polyakova, Jesse M. Shapiro [18]

Working papers

Recognition and awards

Through her academic career, Persson has received several grants and awards, including the Fulbright Scholarship in 2007, Hewlett Foundation/IIE award in 2012, Spectrum Grant in 2016, and a research grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development in 2019.

Persson completed a research fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School's women and public policy program in 2012. Additionally, Persson has worked at Stanford University as an IRiSS faculty fellow and Brown faculty fellow. [18]

Grants, fellowships, and awards [18]
YearTitleAffiliation
2012Dissertation Fellowship in Population, Reproductive Health and Economic Development Hewlett Foundation/IIE
2012Dissertation Fellowship, Center for Retirement Research Boston College
2012Research Fellowship, Women and Public Policy Program Harvard Kennedy School
2013Research Grant Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
2016Spectrum Grant for Population Health Sciences National Institutes of Health
2016Health, Working Life and Welfare Grant Swedish Research Council
2017Distinguished Research Affiliate Award Ifo Institute for Economic Research
2019Brown Faculty Fellow Stanford University

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Arrow</span> American economist (1921–2017)

Kenneth Joseph Arrow was an American economist, mathematician, writer, and political theorist. Along with John Hicks, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972.

Edward "Ted" Castronova is a professor of media at Indiana University Bloomington. He is known in particular for his work on the economies of synthetic worlds.

Carl Assar Eugén Lindbeck was a Swedish professor of economics at Stockholm University and at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurence Kotlikoff</span> American academic and politician

Laurence Jacob Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University, a William Warren Fairfield Professor at Boston University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and a former Senior Economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Pestieau</span>

Pierre Pestieau is a Belgian economist.

Barcelona School of Economics

The Barcelona School of Economics (BSE) is an institution for research and graduate education in economics, finance, data science, and the social sciences located in Barcelona, Spain.

The Center for Economic Studies (CES) is an independent institute within the Faculty of Economics of the University of Munich (LMU).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francine D. Blau</span> American economist

Francine Dee Blau is an American economist and professor of economics as well as Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. In 2010, Blau was the first woman to receive the IZA Prize in Labor Economics for her "seminal contributions to the economic analysis of labor market inequality." She was awarded the 2017 Jacob Mincer Award by the Society of Labor Economists in recognition of lifetime of contributions to the field of labor economics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huw Dixon</span> British economist

Huw David Dixon, born 1958, is a British economist. He has been a professor at Cardiff Business School since 2006, having previously been Head of Economics at the University of York (2003–2006) after being a professor of economics there (1992–2003), and the University of Swansea (1991–1992), a Reader at Essex University (1987–1991) and a lecturer at Birkbeck College 1983–1987.

Amy Nadya Finkelstein is a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the co-director and research associate of the Public Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the co-Scientific Director of J-PAL North America. She was awarded the 2012 John Bates Clark Medal for her contributions to economics. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and won a MacArthur "Genius" fellowship in 2018.

<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.

Mariacristina De Nardi is an economist who was born in Treviso, Italy. She is the Thomas Sargent Professor at the University of Minnesota since 2019. In 2013, De Nardi was appointed professor of economics at University College London; since September 2018, she has been a senior scholar at the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Her research interests include macroeconomics, public economics, wealth distribution, savings, social-insurance reform, social security, household economics, health shocks, medical expenses, fertility and human capital.

Deborah A. Cobb-Clark is an Australian economist. She is currently working as a Professor in the University of Sydney and as a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course. She has also worked in Bonn, Germany at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) since 2000, where she holds the position of director of the Program in Gender and Families.

Kathleen M. McGarry is a professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is also a co-investigator of the Health and Retirement Survey. From 2007 to 2009, she was Joel Z. and Susan Hyatt ‘72 Professor in the Department of Economics at Dartmouth College. She has served on the Editorial Boards of the American Economic Journal: Public Policy, the American Journal of Health Economics, and the Journal of Pension Economics.

Kate Ho is an economics professor at Princeton University. Since July 2018, Professor Ho has worked in partnership with Janet Currie, as a co-director of Princeton's Center for Health and Wellbeing. Ho specializes in the medical care market and its industrial organization with an emphasis on health insurers and hospitals. Ho studies how price effects and the conditions of care provided by hospitals. She has received several awards for her academic research. Professor Ho is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences across the United States of America.

Petra Elisabeth (Crockett) Todd is an American economist whose research interests include labor economics, development economics, microeconomics, and econometrics. She is the Edward J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and is also affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Population Studies Center, the Human Capital and Equal Opportunity Global Working Group (HCEO), the IZA Institute of Labor Economics and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Amanda Kowalski is an American health economist serving as the Gail Wilensky Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Michigan. She is an elected member of the executive committee of the American Economic Association, and a research associate at the health, public economics, and aging programs of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Kowalski's research focuses on health policy, in particular on the targeting of treatments and health insurance expansions to those that need them most. She is the winner of the 2019 ASHEcon medal, awarded by the American Society of Health Economists to the best researcher under the age of 40.

Maya Rossin-Slater is an American health economist currently serving as Associate Professor of Health Policy in the Stanford University School of Medicine. Her research examines the causal effects of social policies and events in utero on the well-being of families and children in the United States. In 2023 Rossin-Slater received the Elaine Bennett Research Prize, awarded annually by the American Economic Association to the best female economist not more than ten years beyond her PhD. She is also the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

Sarah Miller is an American health economist currently serving as associate professor of Business Economics and Public Policy in the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. Her research examines the short and long-term effects of health insurance expansions, and the impacts of income on individuals' health and well-being. In 2022, she received the ASHEcon medal, awarded by the American Society of Health Economists to the best health economist under the age of 40.

Alessandra Voena is an Italian development and labor economist currently serving as Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the economics of the family, in addition to the study of science and innovation. Voena is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society, and is the recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship. In 2017, she received the Carlo Alberto Medal, awarded biennially by the Collegio Carlo Alberto to the best Italian economist under the age of 40.

References

  1. ↑ Persson, Petra (2013). Relationships and Communication (Thesis). Columbia University. doi:10.7916/d84m9986.
  2. ↑ "Petra Persson - Biography". www.nber.org. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  3. ↑ "Petra Persson | Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)". siepr.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  4. ↑ Persson, Petra. "ECON 243 - Syllabus". syllabus.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  5. ↑ "Information Book for Economics Majors" (PDF). economics.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-11-26.
  6. ↑ "Network Members | CESifo". www.cesifo.org. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  7. ↑ "Research and Teaching Statement". web.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  8. ↑ Persson, Petra (2019-04-18). "Social Insurance and the Marriage Market". Journal of Political Economy. 128: 252–300. doi:10.1086/704073. hdl: 10419/129369 . ISSN   0022-3808. S2CID   55518571.
  9. ↑ Weeden, Kim A.; Cha, Youngjoo; Bucca, Mauricio (2016). "Long Work Hours, Part-Time Work, and Trends in the Gender Gap in Pay, the Motherhood Wage Penalty, and the Fatherhood Wage Premium". RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. 2 (4): 71–102. doi: 10.7758/rsf.2016.2.4.03 . ISSN   2377-8253. JSTOR   10.7758/rsf.2016.2.4.03.
  10. ↑ Persson, Petra; Rossin-Slater, Maya (2019-05-01). "When Dad Can Stay Home: Fathers' Workplace Flexibility and Maternal Health". NBER Working Paper 25902. doi:10.3386/w25902. hdl: 10419/202732 . S2CID   190171309.
  11. ↑ Persson, Petra (2019-02-01). "The Roots of Health Inequality and The Value of Intra-Family Expertise" (PDF). NBER Working Paper 25618.
  12. ↑ Persson, Petra; Rossin-Slater, Maya (2018-04-01). "Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation: Reply". American Economic Review. 108 (4–5): 1256–1263. doi:10.1257/aer.20161605. ISSN   0002-8282.
  13. ↑ Willingham, Author Emily (2016-05-26). "Economists go wild over overlooked citations in preprint on prenatal stress". Retraction Watch. Retrieved 2021-08-07.{{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  14. ↑ Matsumoto, Brett (2018). "Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation: Comment". The American Economic Review. 108 (4–5): 1253–1255. doi:10.1257/aer.20161124. ISSN   0002-8282. JSTOR   26528003.
  15. ↑ "What's best for the baby". www.aeaweb.org. Retrieved 2021-08-07.
  16. ↑ Lee, Samuel; Persson, Petra (2018-11-01). "Human Trafficking and Regulating Prostitution". Rochester, NY. SSRN   2057299.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  17. ↑ Lee, Samuel; Persson, Petra (2016-09-01). "Financing from Family and Friends". The Review of Financial Studies. 29 (9): 2341–2386. doi:10.1093/rfs/hhw031. hdl: 10419/81461 . ISSN   0893-9454.
  18. 1 2 3 4 "Petra Persson | Economics | Stanford University". web.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
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.