Yu Kyung Koh - Research

Publications

"Juggling Priorities: Women's Labor Market Opportunities and Household Consumption" (with So Yoon Ahn), Journal of Human Resources (2026) [SSRN version]

Presentations: AASLE 2021, SEHO 2022, Leuven Summer Event - Labor/Family Economics 2022, SOLE 2023, Nebraska Labor Summit

Abstract: How do women’s relative labor market opportunities affect household consumption for married couples? While higher potential wages can enhance women’s bargaining power, shifting consumption toward their preferences, they may increase work hours, altering time constraints and spending. Using exogenous gender-specific wages and scanner data, we find higher female-relative wages increase spending on convenience foods and decrease spending on fresh produce, contributing to higher obesity rates. This is primarily driven by women's time reallocation, given their disproportionate domestic responsibilities. Our findings suggest that the impacts of earned female income may differ from those of unearned income found in previous studies.

"Evaluation of the Reggio Approach to Early Childhood Education" (with Pietro Biroli, Daniela Del Boca, James J. Heckman, Lynne Pettler-Heckman, Sylvi Kuperman, Sidharth Moktan, Chiara D. Pronzato, and Anna L. Ziff), Research in Economics (2018)

Abstract: We evaluate the Reggio Approach using non-experimental data on individuals from the cities of Reggio Emilia, Parma and Padova belonging to one of five age cohorts: ages 50, 40, 30, 18, and 6 as of 2012. The treated were exposed to municipally offered infant-toddler (ages 0–3) and preschool (ages 3–6) programs in Reggio Emilia. The control group either did not receive formal childcare or were exposed to programs offered by municipal systems (outside of Reggio Emilia), or by state or religious systems (in all three cities). We exploit the city-cohort structure of the data to estimate treatment effects using three strategies: difference-in-differences, matching, and matched-difference-in-differences. Most positive and significant effects are generated from comparisons of the treated with individuals who did not receive formal childcare. Relative to not receiving formal care, the Reggio Approach significantly boosts outcomes related to employment, socio-emotional skills, high school graduation, participation in elections, and obesity. Comparisons with individuals exposed to alternative forms of childcare do not yield strong patterns of positive and significant effects. This suggests that differences between the Reggio Approach and other alternatives are not sufficiently large to result in significant differences in outcomes. This interpretation is supported by a survey we conduct, which documents increasing similarities in the administrative and pedagogical practices of childcare systems in the three cities over time.

Working Papers

"Preference Heterogeneity versus Economic Incentives: What Determines the Choice to Give Care to the Elderly?" (with Daniel Barczyk and Matthias Kredler)

Presentations: CEA 2025, SOLE 2025, Population Dynamics Seminar at McGill 2025

Abstract: Family is a primary source of care, yet significant variations in care arrangements exist both across families and countries. To understand why, we develop a tractable static model in which parents and children bargain over care arrangements, accounting for both financial incentives and heterogeneous caregiving preferences. Our structural model directly implies a discrete-choice estimation equation that we implement on European data. We find that non-monetary preferences significantly shape care decisions: omitting preference heterogeneity overstates the price elasticity of formal care by a factor of 2.5. Counterfactuals show that implementing formal-care subsidies as in the most generous low-cost countries leads to a 38-76% increase in nursing-home uptake in the remainder of Europe; cross-country preference heterogeneity is an equally important determinant for the low-cost versus high-cost country gradient in formal-care use. Our model fore-casts a three- to thirteen-fold rise in future formal care demand by 2050, driven mainly by a declining ratio of adult children to elderly parents.

"Racial Sorting in the US Marriage Market: Evolution and Welfare Implications"

Presentations: SEA - Structural Applied Micro 2023, SOLE 2024, CEA 2024

Abstract: Interracial marriage has steadily increased in the US, indicating positive progress toward social integration. Nevertheless, this progress has been uneven across different social groups, with notable gender disparities among Blacks and Asians. This paper analyzes how the marital welfare of different social groups is shaped by changing marital gains related to interracial marriage and changing population composition. Using a structural model of marriage market equilibrium, I first show that marital gains from interracial marriage have improved only for some pairs, revealing substantial gender and education gaps. I then show that these disparities in marital gains, along with the demographic composition, have improved marriage prospects and welfare for some groups (e.g. college-educated Black men) while limiting others’ (e.g. Black women). Using a decomposition method accounting for the equilibrium channels, I find that the evolving gender disparities in marital surplus associated with interracial marriage contributed to the gender gaps in marital welfare among Black men and women. In contrast, the sex ratio imbalances played a more substantial role for White men’s and women’s marital welfare. Lastly, I show that in the absence of the gender gaps in racial preferences in marriage, particularly in the direction of stronger racial integration, marital prospects for all would improve.

Selected Work in Progress

"Workplace Barriers to Taking Parental Leave"

"Geographic Variation in Racial Sorting in the US Marriage Market"