This paper argues that the increase in young male incarceration rates played a significant role in the decline in teen birth rates during the 1990s. Using 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census microdata, I show that incarcerating one additional white (black) male is associated with 0.26 (0.11) fewer births to low-income white (black) teens per year. Relative to the average number of teen births fathered by young white (black) males per year, this is 5 (1.1) times higher. My results imply that the observed increase in male incarceration between 1980 and 2000 led to a 6% percent decline in teen fertility. Teen fertility is negatively related only to the incarceration rates of males empirically likely to father the babies of teen mothers, such as 20 year-old males or males of the same race. The basic pattern of the results across ages, income quintiles, and racial groups together suggest a causal interpretation of the relationship. Instrumenting for incarceration with court orders on jail overcrowding magnifies the negative relationship considerably. My results demonstrate that (1) incarceration may have important social consequences that extend beyond reducing crime and (2) models of bargaining power in mating markets should allow for heterogeneity in the types of male sexual partners.

Erectile dysfunction afflicts nearly 30 million men in the United States, of which at least 10 million have reportedly used Viagra. While Viagra has the potential to increase intimacy in married couples, it also increases the outside options of both males and females, making its impact on divorce theoretically ambiguous. Using proprietary insurance claims data from 1997-2004 from large insurers, we observe that males who use Viagra and currently include their spouse in their insurance plan are more likely to drop their spouse from their insurance plan in the future. In addition, Viagra usage does not predict excluding a spouse in the past. Since our insurance data includes detailed information on specific medical claims, we also examine the effect of Viagra on the incidence of STDs. Our preliminary finding is that Viagra usage is associated with higher rates of STDs in our sample. Future work on this project includes using a longer panel of data in order to analyze trends in divorce and STD rates among people most susceptible to erectile dysfunction prior to Viagra's introduction and instrumenting for Viagra use with variation in insurance plan co-pays. A final identification strategy will be to instrument for Viagra use with pre-existing medical conditions that increase the likelihood of erectile dysfunction.

Prior research has established significant differences in the criminal case outcomes of defendants represented by public defenders and defendants represented by privately retained attorneys. I propose to examine how much of this difference is attributable to the time and resource constraints of public defenders. Seasonal variation in crime rates provides a natural source of variation in the resources of public defender offices. In summer months, when crime rates are higher, PD offices have higher caseloads, resulting in fewer resources per case. Public defender offices usually cannot smooth out this source of variation in caseloads, since the number of attorneys and other office staff is generally fixed on an annual basis. Using this source of variation in funding/resources, I examine whether criminal case outcomes differ across seasons, holding the quality of representation fixed. To address this question, I utilize a panel dataset from 1990-2007 on court case filings and dispositions in a large metropolitan county.