Economic and Social Consequences of Court Decisions on Families

Date of project : 2018 - 2023

This project investigates the effects of court decisions on families.

The project will exploit exceptionally rich data that link together several administrative data sources and allow us to follow all family members and their offspring over a long time span. These datasets include information on many relevant dimensions such as cognitive and non-cognitive abilities, educational and labour market outcomes, and health status. In order to learn about the causal impact of court decisions, the project exploits random assignment of court cases to judges who differ in average stringency. We use this empirical strategy to answer three main questions:
1) How do child custody decisions affect children and their parents?
2) How do foster care placements influence children and their families?
3) How does incarceration affect offenders and their children?

The research is funded by: Academy of Finland

Partners: LSE, Aalto University

Responsible researcher: Kristiina Huttunen, [email protected], +358 295 519 423

Andrés Barrios FernándezKristiina Huttunen Academy of FinlandIncome distribution and inequalityKristiina HuttunenSocial security, taxation and inequality