Melissa Kearney

Melissa Schettini Kearney (born 1974) is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park[1] and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).[2] She is also director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group;[3] a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution; a scholar affiliate and member of the board of the Notre Dame Wilson-Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO);[4] and a scholar affiliate of the MIT Abdul Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).[5] She has been an editorial board member of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy since 2019 and of the Journal of Economic Literature since 2017.[6] Kearney served as director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings from 2013 to 2015[7] and as co-chair of the JPAL State and Local Innovation Initiative from 2015 to 2018.[8]

Melissa Schettini Kearney
Born
Melissa Jean Schettini

1974
EducationPrinceton University (A.B.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Spouse(s)Daniel Patrick Kearney Jr.
Children3
Scientific career
FieldsEconomics
InstitutionsWellesley College
Brookings Institution
University of Maryland
Doctoral advisorJonathan Gruber and Joshua Angrist
WebsiteOfficial website

Kearney graduated with highest honors from Princeton University with an A.B. in economics in 1996 and was inducted as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.[9] She received the Wolf Balleisen Memorial Award from for completing her 96-page long senior thesis, titled "The Economic Determinants of Age at First Birth in United States Metropolitan Areas: An Empirical Analysis", under the supervision of Anne Case.[10] She then pursued graduate studies with the support of a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a Harry S. Truman Scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received a Ph.D. in economics in 2002 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "Essays on public policy and consumer choice: applications to welfare reform and state lotteries", under the supervision of Jonathan Gruber and Joshua Angrist.[11]

Research

Kearney's research focuses on issues related to social policy, poverty, and inequality.[12] In work with Phillip B. Levine, receiving attention in the popular media, she found that greater access to Sesame Street in the show's early days led to improved early educational outcomes for children.[13] Kearney and Levine also found that MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom programs led to a sizable reduction in teen births, accounting for as much as one-third of the overall decline in teen births in the year and a half following the show’s introduction in 2009.[14] She has written extensively about income inequality and has testified before the Congress on the topic of U.S. income inequality.[15] She co-authored a 2013 proposal for a Secondary Earner Tax Deduction that formed the basis for a tax proposal included in proposed legislation[16] and in Obama's proposed 2015 budget.[17]

Selected works
  • MS Kearney, R Wilson, 2018 "Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Non-Marital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking Boom," Review of Economics and Statistics 100(4): 678-690.
  • MS Kearney, PB Levine, 2017 "The Economics of Non-Marital Childbearing and the Marriage Premium for Children," Annual Review of Economics (9).
  • MS Kearney, 2016 "Should we be concerned about income inequality?" in Ed. Michael Strain, The U.S. Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for U.S. Policy. Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.
  • MS Kearney, PB Levine, 2016 "Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop-Out of High School." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.
  • MS Kearney, L Turner, 2013 "Giving Secondary Earners a Tax Break: A Proposal to Help Low- and Middle-Income Families." The Hamilton Project.
  • DH Autor, LF Katz, MS Kearney, 2008 "Trends in US wage inequality: Revising the revisionists" The Review of economics and statistics 90 (2), 300-323
  • H David, LF Katz, MS Kearney, 2008 "The polarization of the US labor market" American economic review 96 (2), 189-194
  • J Guryan, E Hurst, M Kearney, 2008 "Parental education and parental time with children" Journal of Economic perspectives 22 (3), 23-46
  • MS Kearney, PB Levine, 2012 "Why is the teen birth rate in the United States so high and why does it matter?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 26 (2), 141-63
  • MS Kearney, 2005 "State lotteries and consumer behavior" Journal of Public Economics 89 (11–12), 2269-2299

References
  1. "Melissa Kearney Named as ECON Moskowitz Professor | BSOS | Behavioral & Social Sciences College | University of Maryland". bsos.umd.edu. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  2. "Melissa Schettini Kearney". www.nber.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  3. "Melissa Kearney | Aspen Ideas". Aspen Ideas Festival. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  4. Dame, Marketing Communications: Web // University of Notre. "Our Advisory Board // Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities // University of Notre Dame". Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  5. "Affiliated Professors | The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab". www.povertyactionlab.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  6. "American Economic Association". www.aeaweb.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  7. "Melissa S. Kearney | The Hamilton Project". www.hamiltonproject.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  8. "Kearney, Melissa – INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON POVERTY – UW–Madison". www.irp.wisc.edu. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  9. "Melissa Schettini Kearney - CV" (PDF).
  10. Schettini, Melissa (1996). "The Economic Determinants of Age at First Birth in United States Metropolitan Areas: An Empirical Analysis". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. Kearney, Melissa Schettini (2002). Essays on public policy and consumer choice : applications to welfare reform and state lotteries (Thesis thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  12. "Melissa Kearney". Wharton Business Radio. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  13. "This is how Sesame Street is improving children's education across the world". National Institute for Early Education Research. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  14. "Melissa Kearney Archives". Freakonomics. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  15. "Testimony of Melissa S. Kearney | The Hamilton Project". www.hamiltonproject.org. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  16. "New Tax Legislation Would Increase the Return to Work for Low-and Middle-Income Working Families | The Hamilton Project". www.hamiltonproject.org. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  17. Admin, D. B. K. "Obama adopts tax reform proposal from UMD economics professors - The Diamondback". dbknews.com. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
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