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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

These effects hold even after accounting for broader health infrastructure and economic gains - showing that even basic family planning services meaningfully shaped the US demographic transition. Relevant today wherever demand for birth spacing remains high. Preview: www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

aeaweb.org

The Impact of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Clinics on Early 20th Century US Fertility and Mortality

(Forthcoming Article) - In 1916, Margaret Sanger established the first birth control clinic in US history. From the mid-1920s, “Sanger clinics” spread over the entire US These clinics advised women on...

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Using 45M+ women from the 1920–40 census plus county-level birth/death data, and exploiting the staggered rollout of clinics for causal identification, we find that Sanger clinics: 📉 Explain 5–6.5% of the US fertility decline (1920–40) 👶 Reduced stillbirths by 3–6% 👶 Reduced infant mortality by 3.5%

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

In the early 1900s, Comstock Laws banned contraception in the US. Sanger illegally opened clinics where trained doctors fitted diaphragms and taught women how to use them — the first real access point for female-controlled birth control at the time.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

🎉 Thrilled to share our paper on Margaret Sanger's birth control clinics has been accepted at AEJ: Economic Policy! With Michael Grimm & Cathy Hajo — 6 years in the making. Here's what we found 🧵

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

🎓 Stellenausschreibung: Wissenschaftl Mitarbeiter/in an meinem Lehrstuhl für Public Economics an der Universität Passau Ich habe ab 1.10.26 eine Doktorandenstelle (75%, TVL E13, 3 Jahre mit Option auf Verlängerung) zu besetzen. Details: tinyurl.com/mucj8hde Vielen Dank fürs Teilen & Weiterleiten!

tinyurl.com

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

📄 Read an ungated version of the full research paper here: www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo... 📄 Read a non-technical German summary here: www.ifo.de/DocDL/sd-202... 📄 Read a non-technical short summary (in German and English) here: www.digital.uni-passau.de/en/beitraege...

ifo.de

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

🌍 Why does this matter? Findings suggest that abolishing birthright citizenship could have unintended consequences, including higher youth crime & its associated costs. Inclusive birthright citizenship policies, by contrast, can foster social integration of children with long-run beneficial effects.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Moreover, citizenship fosters cooperation betw immigrant children & their native peers. Finally, parents of children receiving citizenship start to engage more with the local community and use the German language. Birthright citizenship promotes social integration, which reduces criminal engagement.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

🔍 How does citizenship reduce crime? Prior research points to several mechanisms: Birthright citizenship raises educational attainment and expands labor market opportunities, which increases the opportunity costs of criminal behavior.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

📊 What did we find? Using newly collected administrative data on police-reported crimes from three German federal states (Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, and Berlin), covering 120,000+ individual criminal cases with youth suspects, we find that birthright citizenship reduced youth crime by 70%.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

This gives rise to a natural experiment that allows us to estimate causal effects instead of just correlations: children of immigrant parents born just after January 1, 2000 were far more likely to receive citizenship at birth than those born just before.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

📌 What did we study? From 2000, granted automatic citizenship at birth (jus soli) to children of immigrants who had legally resided in Germany for at least 8 years. Prior to 2000, children born on German territory received birthright citizenship only if at least one parent held the German passport.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

More than a quarter of people aged 15–34 in OECD countries are foreign-born or have foreign-born parents. How we integrate them and their children has profound consequences for society. One underexplored policy lever is access to birthright citizenship.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

In our new research paper (joint work with Leander Andres, Gordon B. Dahl, Helmut Rainer, and Simone Schueller), we show that birthright citizenship substantially declines youth crime of children born to migrant families. Here are more details of the study design, data, results, and mechanisms:

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Reposted by Stefan Bauernschuster

Uni Passau Research Magazine @unipassauresearch.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Eine neue Studie zeigt: Die #Staatsbürgerschaft durch Geburt reduziert #Kriminalität von Jugendlichen mit Migrationshintergrund erheblich. Beteiligt an der Forschung war der Ökonom @sbauernschuster.bsky.social von unserer Uni. Mehr dazu 👉 www.digital.uni-passau.de/beitraege/20... #EconSky 🧪

Prof. Dr. Stefan Bauernschuster, Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Public Economics.

Die Grafik zeigt den Effekt der Staatsbürgerschaft durch Geburt auf Jugendkriminalität. Verglichen wurden Jugendliche, die kurz vor und nach der Reform im Jahr 2000 geboren wurden. Die gestrichelte Linie zeigt ein fiktives Szenario ohne Kriminalitätsrückgang. Der tatsächliche Rückgang entspricht der Differenz zwischen der gestrichelten grauen und der durchgezogenen grauen Linie.

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Reposted by Stefan Bauernschuster

JKU Department of Economics @jku-economics.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

📆 Join us on March 11 at our economics research seminar with Stefan Bauernschuster (@sbauernschuster.bsky.social), who will present "Birthright Citizenship and Youth Crime." Details and abstract: www.jku.at/news-events/...

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Reposted by Stefan Bauernschuster

Ludger Woessmann @woessmann.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

🚨 Thrilled that our 🆕 paper “Age and Cognitive Skills: Use It or Lose It” just came out in #ScienceAdvances @science.org 💡 Longitudinal evidence: age pattern of literacy+numeracy not as bleak as cross-section suggests + strongly differs by skill usage www.science.org/doi/full/10.... 🧵A thread 1/7

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Mechanisms II: Why was SPD believed to have expertise in public health? In contrast to other parties, SPD and its predecessors explicitly addressed health policy in party programs; SPD particularly concerned with health of workers; SPD strongly involved in health insurance system

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Mechanisms I: Not driven by populist and extremist parties; no evidence for punishing/rewarding incumbents; no by-product of dismal economic conditions after World War I. Results in line with issue ownership theory: voters reward competence in salient issues.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Validity & robustness checks: Parallel pre-trends ✅; city-level analysis: effect driven by deaths due to respiratory diseases ✅; robust to controlling for large set of covariates, incl., e.g., pre-War poverty, inequality, other mortality phenomena during World War I.✅

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Effect size: Moving from a constituency at the 25th percentile of mortality to a constituency at the 75th percentile of the mortality distribution increased the left-wing vote share by 2.1 percentage points or 12.4 percent of a standard deviation. Effect is persistent.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Method and data: We exploit a panel of voting results containing 14 elections from 1893 to 1933 across all 362 constituencies of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic in a difference-in-differences design and combine this panel with a measure of Spanish flu mortality in 1918.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Background II: Still, since the pandemic killed around 400,000 people and public life was altered due to widespread sick leaves, the Spanish Flu was arguably salient to voters when elections were held in January 1919, just a month after the 2nd wave had flattened.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Background I: The deadly 2nd wave of the Spanish flu hit Germany in late 1918 during the crucial phase of World War I. As authorities did not want to raise concerns of the people, they rejected any interventions and did little to limit the spread of influenza

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Take-home result: Excess mortality due to the Spanish Flu resulted in a lasting shift of votes towards left-wing parties in the Weimar Republic. Extremists could not benefit from pandemic. Mechanism: As public health became a salient issue, voters rewarded expertise in this issue

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

🚨PUBLICATION ALERT The #SpanishFlu was one of the deadliest pandemics in history. How did it affect elections in the Weimar Republic? w/ Matthias Blum, Christoph Koenig & @hornungerik.bsky.social @econtribute.bsky.social Now published in Explorations in Economic History: doi.org/10.1016/j.ee...

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Thank you @danielkuehnle.bsky.social for inviting me to present my paper „The impact of Margaret Sanger‘s birth control clinics on early 20th century US fertility and mortality“ @unidue.bsky.social. Super nice crowd, great comments - highly recommend! www.wiwi.uni-passau.de/fileadmin/do...

wiwi.uni-passau.de

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Herzlichen Glückwunsch an meinen lieben Kollegen Marc Goerigk zum 1. Platz im BWL-Ranking U40 @wirtschaftswoche.bsky.social 🥳 wiwo.de/politik/konj...

wiwo.de

WirtschaftsWoche

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Reposted by Stefan Bauernschuster

Uni Passau Research Magazine @unipassauresearch.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

German magazine @wirtschaftswoche.bsky.social has named a professor from our university as the most prolific young business economist in Germany - congratulations, Professor #MarcGoerigk 👏🙌 Learn more about his research and why he finds the abstract more beautiful than concrete problems:

digital.uni-passau.de

Using algorithms to find the best possible decision

The German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche has named Professor Marc Goerigk from the University of Passau the most prolific business administration professor under the age of 40 in the German-speak...

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 10/09/2024

Memories of a great conference #eale2024 in Bergen 🇳🇴

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Hier ist ein spannendes Papier, das zeigt, dass fest installierte Blitzer wirken, aber nur sehr lokal (Umkreis 500 Meter): www.dropbox.com/s/rupfe4rxqz...

dropbox.com

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 05/10/2023

Toronto ❤️ Thank you for great discussions, Shari Eli, Michael Baker, Tianyi Wang, David Nagy, Devin Bissky Dziadyk and Stephan Heblich! Now preparing for the Urban Economics Association conference.

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 22/09/2023

Looking forward to the annual meeting of the German Economic Association in Regensburg, in particular to seeing many new faces. Please, dear doctoral students, approach us „old“ professors - this is what conferences are made for!

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Stefan Bauernschuster @sbauernschuster.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

Starting here with a few holiday pictures from Sardegna. May attract more people than my research.

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