Economics of Paid Family Leave

Kelly Bedard is a professor of economics and department chair at the University of California, Santa Barbara.Bedard received her Ph.D. from Queen’s University in 1996. She is an associate editor for the Journal of Labor Economics and a research associate in the Broom Center for Demography.Her research focuses largely on the economics of education and health, including influential studies of the effects of military service on health, determinants of gender test score gaps among children in OECD countries, and the determinants of obesity in populations of immigrants to the U.S. Probably her best known paper studied the effects of a student’s age relative to his/her classmates in kindergarten on success later in life; this research was featured prominently in the popular press and in a recent bestselling book by Malcolm Gladwell. Prof. Bedard’s research has been supported by two grants from NIDDK.

Elena Patel is an assistant professor of finance at the University of Utah, specializing in public finance and corporate tax policy. Prior to joining the University of Utah, Dr. Patel worked extensively in the federal government including the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department. Her research agenda is informed based on her federal government experience, aiming to bridge the gap between academic research and public policy. Research topics include corporate tax policy, optimal tax systems, and how the tax system influences decisions for businesses, families, and individuals. She received a B.S. in economics and mathematics in 2007, an M.A. in economics in 2008, and a Ph.D. in economics in 2013 from the University of Michigan.

Christopher Ruhm is a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia. He received his doctorate in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. Prior to joining UVA, in 2010, he held faculty positions at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Boston University. During the 1996-97 academic year he served as senior economist on President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Germany. His recent research has focused on the role of government policies in helping parents with young children balance the competing needs of work and family life, and on examining how various aspects of health are produced. He is coauthor of two books and has more than 150 pieces published as book chapters and articles in economics, public policy and health journals and is associate editor or editorial board member of five journals. His research has been cited in major national and international media outlets and he has received external research funding from the U.S. Department of Labor, National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, among many others.

Maya Rossin-Slater is an assistant professor in the Division of Primary Care and Outcomes Research in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.  She is also a faculty fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic and Policy Research, a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research affiliate at the Institute of Labor Economics. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in 2013, and was an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2013 to 2017. Her research includes work in health, public, and labor economics. She focuses on issues in maternal and child well-being, family structure and behavior, and policies targeting disadvantaged populations in the U.S. and other developed countries. She is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, is the PI on several National Institutes of Health grants, and has published articles in a variety of peer-reviewed journals including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.