UC San Diego

This dissertation consists of three separate papers studying policy relevant questions in labor economics. The goal of these studies is to understand the welfare effects from various government regulation and programs. Chapter 1 investigates how child support income affects household resources for single mothers with at least some college education. I determine that child support income promotes single mother financial independence by reducing welfare participation, decreasing cohabitation rates, and increase labor supply. Chapter 2 examines how a change in minimum nurse staffing regulation affects nurse employment and patient mortality in California nursing homes. My results show that regulation induced increases in nurse staffing cause patient mortality to fall by 4.6%. Chapter 3 determines whether child support enforcement reform coming from the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 has an impact on rates of single motherhood in the United States. I find that child support enforcement reform causes the likelihood of being a single mother to increase among women with 12 or less years of education