Essays in Development Economics

Abstract

Early-life education and health interventions have long-lasting impacts on our lifetime welfare. This dissertation consists of three essays in development economics for young people. Chapter 1 examines causal effects of the nationwide college admission policy reform in 2005 which introduces coarsening SAT grade structure and more competitive grading of high school GPA in Korea on high school students’ time allocation behavior and welfare in a college admission game. I find no evidence of positive welfare effects. Chapter 2 extends the college admission policy implication by employing various non-parametric methods such as changes-in-changes and quantile difference-in-differences estimators introduced by Athey and Imbens (2006) to show the heterogeneous policy effects on students' leisure and study hours by outcome levels. Chapter 3 analyzes the behavioral effects of a social media fruit drink countermarketing messages. A randomized controlled trial among US Latinx parents with children age 0-5 found that social media countermarketing messages significantly reduced percent choosing fruit drink from online store in the intervention groups compared to the control group with car seat messages after the interventions.