PhD Candidate: Mary Motolenich
Dissertation Title: Essays on the Economics of Reproductive Healthcare
Abstract: This dissertation delves into multiple elements of reproductive healthcare in the United States. In my first essay, I utilize a novel, proprietary medical claims dataset to structure pregnancy episodes of care and use these care episodes to estimate two previously entangled effects on maternal care: healthcare provider type and healthcare provider access. I find that CNM involvement in pregnancy episodes generally decreases the likelihood of experiencing C-Section delivery and significantly affects testing utilization. In my second essay, I exploit the variability of and changes to sex education mandates and curriculum requirements to estimate a causal effect on adolescent birth rates at the county level. Accounting for the changes in legislation and characteristics of state-level educational requirements, I find that academic standards and requirements significantly impact birth rates. In my third and final essay, I exploit the seemingly arbitrary cutoff for the definition of advanced maternal age (defined at 35) to be considered a high-risk pregnancy using regression discontinuity design. Since this medical guideline may affect the care, a pregnant person may seek out and the amount of care a provider may recommend, I restrict a subset of Medicaid MAX data to include only pregnancy episodes to women ages 33 to 37 years old to determine whether this guideline affects care, testing procedures, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. I find evidence that there are discontinuities in prenatal care and outcomes around this threshold, and the magnitude of these differences varies by underlying pregnancy risk. Both high and low-risk women are more likely to experience fetal monitoring and detailed ultrasounds because of the AMA designation.
Location: Zoom link
Time: June 20, 1:00 PM EST
Committee:
Danny Hughes, Co-Advisor, School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Daniel Dench, Co-Advisor, School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Karen Yan, School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Mayra Pineda-Torres, School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Sara Markowitz, Department of Economics, Emory University