Working Papers

Abstract. Fertility rates in many developed countries have fallen to historically low levels, renewing attention to the constraints that shape reproductive decision-making. In Spain, low fertility is closely tied to reduced progression beyond the first child, making fertility intentions among parents especially important. This paper builds upon Rutigliano and Lozano (2022) by revisiting the relationship between grandparental childcare support and short-term fertility intentions using nationally representative data from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey. It extends their study by applying a Beckerian constraint-based framework and by centering the distinction between co-residential and non-residential support in the explanation of gendered differences in fertility intentions.

Using gender-stratified logistic regression models across a series of specifications, the analysis finds that grandparental support is positively associated with short-term fertility intentions among Spanish parents aged 18–45 with at least one biological child in the household. Among women, only non-residential grandparental support is associated with higher fertility intentions. Among men, the positive association is concentrated among fathers receiving co-residential support, particularly those with two or more children; because the male co-residential subgroup is small, small-sample diagnostics suggest a reasonably robust but imprecisely estimated association. These findings contribute to research on low fertility by showing that informal intergenerational support should not be treated as a uniform resource: its association with fertility intentions varies by gender, parity, and household arrangement.

Abstract. This paper asks whether state-run export inspection is actually necessary to sustain trade in markets with severe asymmetric information. We study New York, the leading U.S. export hub, which in the 1840s first made public inspection voluntary (1843) and then abolished inspection offices entirely (1846). Using state-level exports per capita from 1830–1860 and a synthetic control design, we compare New York’s post-reform trajectory to a counterfactual “synthetic New York” built from states that retained mandatory inspection. New York and its synthetic track closely before reform; afterward, New York’s exports per capita rise to roughly two to three times those of its synthetic counterpart. Placebo tests and alternative intervention dates show that this divergence is highly unlikely to be spurious. The results provide causal evidence that dismantling a long-standing public inspection regime increased exports rather than triggering the collapse predicted by standard “lemons” arguments. Interpreted through a measurement-cost lens, the findings imply that private branding, merchant associations, and reputational mechanisms can organize quality assurance at lower cost than politicized state inspection — challenging modern claims that public “export quality infrastructure” is a necessary precondition for integration into world markets.

Uses the synthetic control method to study the effect of the Castro Revolution on fertility outcomes in Cuba.

Coins the term “Silver Age of Mercenaries” to describe Europe’s renewed reliance on mercenary armies during the 17th-century crisis (1618–1714), extending Leeson and Piano’s (2021) model to show how population decline raises the relative cost of native-born soldiers. Uses a natural experiment comparing Venice’s mercenary reliance in the Fourth and Fifth Venetian-Ottoman Wars — before and after the Republic’s population failed to recover from the 1575–1577 plague — finding that Venice relied more heavily on mercenaries once its recruitment base tightened.