Greenwood, Jeremy

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  • Publication
    Substance Abuse during the Pandemic: Implications for Labor-Force Participation
    (2022-04-04) Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih; Kopecky, Karen A.
    The labor-force participation rates of prime-age U.S. workers dropped in March 2020—the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—and have still not fully recovered. At the same time, substance-abuse deaths were elevated during the pandemic relative to trend indicating an increase in the number of substance abusers, and abusers of opioids and crystal methamphetamine have lower labor-force participation rates than non-abusers. Could increased substance abuse during the pandemic be a factor contributing to the fall in labor-force participation? Estimates of the number of additional substance abusers during the pandemic presented here suggest that increased substance abuse accounts for between 9 and 26 percent of the decline in prime-age labor-force participation between February 2020 and June 2021.
  • Publication
    From Shame to Game in One Hundred Years: A Macroeconomic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and its De-Stigmatization
    (2011-11-11) Fernández-Villaverde, Jesus; Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih
    Societies socialize children about sex. This is done in the presence of peer-group effects, which may encourage undesirable behavior. Parents want the best for their children. Still, they weigh the marginal gains from socializing their children against its costs. Churches and states may stigmatize sex, both because of a concern about the welfare of their flocks and the need to control the cost of charity associated with out-of-wedlock births. Modern contraceptives have profoundly affected the calculus for instilling sexual mores. As contraception has improved there is less need for parents, churches and states to inculcate sexual mores. Technology affects culture.
  • Publication
    Social Change: The Sexual Revolution
    (2009-04-21) Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih
    In 1900 only six percent of unwed females engaged in premarital sex. Now, three quarters do. The sexual revolution is studied here using an equilibrium matching model, where the costs of premarital sex fall over time due to technological improvement in contraceptives. Individuals differ in their desire for sex. Given this, people tend to circulate in social groups where prospective partners share their views on premarital sex. To the extent that a society's customs and more reflect the aggregation of decentralization decision making by its members, shifts in the economic environment may induce changes in what is perceived as culture.
  • Publication
    Marriage and Divorce since World War II: Analyzing the Role of Technological Progress on the Formation of Households
    (2008-05-23) Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih
    Since World War II there has been: (i) a rise in the fraction of time that married households allocate to market work, (ii) an increase in the rate of divorce, and (iii) a decline in the rate of marriage. It is argued here that labor-saving technological progress in the household sector can explain these facts. This makes it more feasible for singles to maintain their own home, and for married women to work. To address this question, a search model of marriage and divorce, which incorporates household production, is developed. An extension looks back at the prewar era.
  • Publication
    The Wife's Protector: A Quantitative Theory Linking Contraceptive Technology with the Decline in Marriage
    (2020-05-01) Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih; Kopecky, Karen A.
    The 19th and 20th centuries saw a transformation in contraceptive technologies and their take up. This led to a sexual revolution, which witnessed a rise in premarital sex and out-of-wedlock births, and a decline in marriage. The impact of contraception on married and single life is analyzed here both theoretically and quantitatively. The analysis is conducted using a model where people search for partners. Upon finding one, they can choose between abstinence, a premarital sexual relationship, and marriage. The model is confronted with some stylized facts about premarital sex and marriage over the course of the 20th century. Some economic history is also presented.
  • Publication
    The Downward Spiral
    (2022-09-14) Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih; Kopecky, Karen A.
    There have been more than 500,000 opioid overdose deaths since 2000. To analyze the opioid epidemic, a model is constructed where individuals, with and without pain, choose whether to misuse opioids knowing the probabilities of addiction and dying. These odds are functions of opioid use. Markov chains are estimated from the US data for the college and non-college educated that summarize the transitions into and out of opioid addiction as well as to a deadly overdose. A structural model is constructed that matches the estimated Markov chains. The epidemic's drivers, and the impact of medical interventions, are examined.
  • Publication
    The Great Transition: Kuznets Facts for Family-Economists
    (2021-11-09) Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih; Marto, Ricardo
    The 20th century beheld a dramatic transformation of the family. Some Kuznets style facts regarding structural change in the family are presented. Over the course of the 20th century in the United States fertility declined, educational attainment waxed, housework fell, leisure increased, jobs shifted from blue to white collar, and marriage waned. These trends are also observed in the cross-country data. A model is developed, and then calibrated, to address the trends in the US data. The calibration procedure is closely connected to the underlying economic logic. Three drivers of the great transition are considered: neutral technological progress, skill-biased technological change, and drops in the price of labor-saving household durables.