Is Marriage Always Good for Children?: Evidence from Families Affected by Incarceration
利用男性监禁率作为工具变量，研究非婚生育对黑人和西班牙裔孩子高中辍学率的影响，发现非婚生育与孩子教育之间的负相关可能由未观测因素导致，对西班牙裔孩子而言，与未婚母亲生活可能更有利。
Never-married motherhood is associated with worse educational outcomes for children. But this association may reflect other factors that also determine family structure, rather than causal effects. We use incarceration rates for men as instrumental variables in estimating the effect of never-married motherhood on the high school dropout rate of black and Hispanic children. We find that unobserved factors drive the negative relationship between never-married motherhood and child education, at least for children of women whose marriage decisions are affected by incarceration of men. For Hispanics we find evidence that these children actually may be better off living with a never-married mother.