Anna Aizer Explained

Anna Aizer
Workplaces:Brown University
Titles:Professor of Economics

Anna Aizer is a labor and health economist, who currently serves as the Maurice R. Greenberg Professor of Economics at Brown University where she is also a Faculty Associate at the Population Studies and Training Center. Her research focuses on child health and well-being, in particular the effect of societal factors and social issues on children's health.[1]

Biography

Aizer received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1991, a Master of Science at Harvard University in 1995, and a PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002.[2] She then went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University's Center for Research on Child Bearing, before becoming a professor and the chair of the economic department at Brown University where she currently works. She is also a co-director of the NBER's program on children.

Research

As a labor and health economist, Aizer has an interest in child health and well-being.[3] Her scholarly interests are child health, child support, domestic violence, Medicaid, poverty and welfare, and her recent focus is on the inter-generational transmission of health and income.

Inter-generational transmission of poverty

Together with economist Janet Currie, Aizer published a paper in Science as a co-author, arguing that inequality of outcomes could be passed on through maternal disadvantage.[4] Descending from the bad parental health, maternal disadvantage leads to the poor health of the children at birth. This also leads to less access in medical care, further worsening the health of children. Yet, the health of the newborn children is improving among the most disadvantaged population, likely due to the improvement in public policies and the increase in the knowledge of infant health.

With Shari Eli, Joseph Ferrie and Adriana Lleras-Muney, Aizer also estimated the long-term impact of cash transfers to poor families from the records of applicants to the Mother's Pension program and death records.[5] From this the authors found that the male children of the accepted applicants lived longer, got more years of schooling, were less likely to be underweight and had higher income than that of the rejected mothers.

Cooperating with Laura Stroud and Stephen Buka, Aizer studied the effect of maternal stress the offspring outcomes.[6] They found that the exposure to high levels of stress hormone negatively affects the offspring's cognition, health and educational attainment. By establishing the relationship between the cortisol level and the development of human capital, the study also reveals the impact of elevated cortisol on the offspring, making a link with the topic of inter-generational persistence of poverty.

Child health and well-being

A major topic of Aizer's work has been access for children to social services. Aizer has found that barriers public health insurance enrollment include the information and the administrative costs. These barriers differ based on race.[7]

Aizer also published an article focusing on adult supervision and child behavior, examining the issue of children spending their school years without adult supervision due to the growth in the number of women entering the workforce and the high cost of child care.[8]

In 2015, Aizer published an article on juvenile incarceration in the Quarterly Journal of Economics with Joseph J. Doyle, Jr.[9] In this study, they estimate the effects of juvenile incarceration on the completion of high school and adult recidivism by analyzing the incarceration tendency of randomly assigned judges. Together, they found incarceration of juveniles significantly reduces rates of returning to school while increasing the frequency of juveniles classified as emotionally or behaviorally disordered when juveniles do return to school.

Selected works

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Anna Aizer Population Studies and Training Center Brown University . 2019-04-02 . www.brown.edu.
  2. Web site: Aizer, Anna. vivo.brown.edu. 2019-04-02.
  3. Web site: Anna Aizer Population Studies and Training Center Brown University . 2019-04-02 . www.brown.edu.
  4. Currie. Janet. Aizer. Anna. 2014-05-23. The intergenerational transmission of inequality: Maternal disadvantage and health at birth. Science. 344. 6186. 856–861. 10.1126/science.1251872. 0036-8075. 24855261. 4578153. 2014Sci...344..856A .
  5. Lleras-Muney. Adriana. Ferrie. Joseph. Eli. Shari. Aizer. Anna. April 2016. The Long-Run Impact of Cash Transfers to Poor Families. American Economic Review. 106. 4. 935–971. 10.1257/aer.20140529. 0002-8282. 5510957. 28713169.
  6. Buka. Stephen. Stroud. Laura. Aizer. Anna. 2016-08-01. Maternal Stress and Child Outcomes: Evidence from Siblings. Journal of Human Resources. 51. 3. 523–555. 10.3368/jhr.51.3.0914-6664R. 29118458. 5673140. 152645075. 0022-166X.
  7. Aizer. Anna. 2007-07-12. Public Health Insurance, Program Take-Up, and Child Health. The Review of Economics and Statistics. 89. 3. 400–415. 10.1162/rest.89.3.400. 17277328. 0034-6535.
  8. Home alone: Supervision after school and child behavior. Journal of Public Economics. August 2004 . 88 . 9 . 1835–1848 . 10.1016/S0047-2727(03)00022-7 . 2019-04-02 . Aizer . Anna .
  9. Doyle. Joseph J.. Aizer. Anna. 2015-05-01. Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 130. 2. 759–803. 10.1093/qje/qjv003. 10465708. 0033-5533.

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