Disability and Mental Health
Lightning Round SessionSunday, Jan. 3, 2027 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (EST)
- Chair: Mary Eschelbach Hansen, American University
The Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Expanding Public Education for Disabled Students
Abstract
Between 1949 and 1980, every U.S. state mandated public schools to provide educational services ("special education") for disabled students. This is one of the largest education reforms in U.S. history, but little is known about its impacts. Given scarce data in this period, I compile survey and administrative datasets and set up a difference-in-difference design using variation in the mandates' timing. I show that the mandates increased both services for disabled students and preschool enrollments. In adulthood, disabled individuals below school age at a mandate's implementation became about 20% less likely to have no education, attained up to 0.23 more years of education, and were more likely to have worked. Although this policy could have taken away resources from non-disabled students, in fact, education and employment also increased for non-disabled individuals. These effects align with evidence that the mandates increased spending per student by up to 15%. Families were also impacted: the mandates increased employment among mothers of disabled children and the probability that disabled individuals became household heads. Over the long term, the mandates paid for themselves by generating government revenues in excess of their cost. These results provide new evidence on the large, broad impacts of expanding access to education for disabled students.Volunteering, Mental Health, and Pro-Sociality: Evidence From England’s National Health Service
Abstract
This paper examines the causal impact of volunteering on mental health and pro-sociality using data from England's National Health Service and Care Volunteer Responders programme, launched in July 2023. Because volunteer registrations systematically exceed available tasks, and because tasks are allocated randomly via a mobile application ("GoodSAM"), the programme generates quasi-experimental variation that enables credible causal identification.We find that volunteering significantly reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety, as measured by the PHQ-2 and GAD-2 screening tools, with effect sizes in the range of 0.10–0.17 standard deviations. These mental health benefits are increasing in the number of tasks completed with diminishing marginal returns, and return to baseline within approximately four months of the last task. Volunteering also significantly reduces loneliness and improves broader wellbeing outcomes, including life satisfaction and sense of purpose in life.
On pro-sociality, volunteering raises generalised trust towards strangers by around 0.10 standard deviations. Trust effects are similarly concave in task intensity but decay more quickly, returning to baseline within roughly two months. Volunteering also substantially raises both the likelihood of future volunteering (by approximately 28 percentage points) and the number of tasks individuals intend to complete.
Heterogeneity analysis by service type reveals distinct mechanisms. Location-based Community Services drive stronger mental health improvements, consistent with activation through physical helping behaviour. Remote Chat Services are more effective at building social trust, likely by connecting otherwise unrelated individuals.
Taken together, these findings make a strong case for large-scale volunteering programmes as cost-effective public health and social cohesion interventions. Using standard wellbeing valuations, the programme's estimated benefit-cost ratio is 30.8, with a social unit cost of £550 per WELLBY.
Work From Home, Disability Employment, and Productivity
Abstract
Since the pandemic, the supply of workers with a disability has risen substantially, a trend largely attributed to the expansion of remote work opportunities. This paper examines how the rise in work from home (WFH) among individuals with a disability has affected productivity. Leveraging exogenous industry-level variation in WFH, I find that a one-standard deviation increase in disability WFH is associated with persistent declines in productivity—measured by output per worker and output per hour—ranging from about 2% in 2021 to 4% in 2024. These findings are consistent with a supply-side mechanism in which expanded access to remote work increases employment along the extensive margin, lowering average productivity through compositional effects.All or Nothing: Labor, Health and the U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance Program
Abstract
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) currently classifies applicants as either fully disabled or not disabled, which may encourage partially disabled individuals to exaggerate health limitations, retire early, and thereby increase their mortality risk. Using Health and Retirement Study data and the Method of Simulated Moments, I estimate a life-cycle model to evaluate the labor and health effects of alternative SSDI designs. I examine a reform that provides disability benefits to partially disabled Americans between ages 51 and Social Security’s full retirement age. Simulations indicate that the reform increases labor supply by up to about 6 percentage points, reduces the annual mortality rate by 0.1 percentage points, and lowers disability prevalence by 1 percent among this group, extending approximately 40,000 lives. After accounting for additional tax revenue, the cost of extending one life by one year is about $17,000.Special Education Substantially Improves Learning: Evidence from Three States
Abstract
Special education serves more than one in seven U.S. students, costs roughly twice as much per pupil as general education, and accounts for about one-third of federal appropriations to elementary and secondary education — yet its causal impact on learning remains understudied. Many studies reporting mixed associations between special education participation and achievement do not sufficiently address non-random selection into services, leaving persistent questions about whether these investments work.Using longitudinal administrative data on the universe of public school students in Massachusetts, Indiana, and Connecticut, we estimate the causal effect of individualized supports on academic achievement with an event-study design that tracks outcomes around initial disability classification. Students' test scores decline prior to placement at roughly 0.02–0.04σ per year, then rise sharply after services begin, yielding a consistent V-shaped pattern. Within three years of classification, achievement is 0.2–0.4σ higher than counterfactual trends imply. To address the central identification challenge that students enter special education along declining outcome trajectories, we apply the Rambachan and Roth (2023) bounding approach, which relaxes standard parallel-trends assumptions and remains robust across plausible counterfactual scenarios.
Achievement gains are large and statistically significant across disability categories and across subgroups defined by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and urbanicity. In Massachusetts, where testing accommodation data are available, results are nearly unchanged on assessments taken without accommodations, confirming that gains reflect genuine learning rather than measurement artifacts. A complementary difference-in-differences design produces nearly identical estimates, further validating our within-student approach.
These findings demonstrate that returns to individualized educational investment are substantial. Students whose learning needs diverge from standard instruction experience low marginal productivity absent supports but large gains once instruction is adapted, suggesting inclusive educational policies can generate high social returns.
Switching Strategies? Peer Impacts of Moving Disabled Students to General Education Classrooms
Abstract
Prior work has shown that placing disabled students in classrooms with non-disabled peers (“mainstreaming”) can have negative impacts on these peers, but has not fully considered the role of student mobility in understanding these impacts. Using Danish administrative data and a difference-in-difference design, we show that the arrival of a mainstreamed student in a classroom makes peers 11% more likely to switch schools in a given year. Because school switching is selective by socio-economic background and choice of public versus private schools, this may increase socio-economic segregation. We isolate the direct impacts of the arrival of a mainstreamed student from the indirect impacts of school switching by studying a sizeable — although potentially selected — subgroup of students who never change schools. For this subgroup, we find little evidence that the arrival of a mainstreamed student causes negative effects on attendance, test scores, or social tensions in the class. In contrast, students who do change schools experience negative impacts, which may be due to direct effects from the arrival of a mainstreamed student or the indirect disruption caused by switching schools. Research and policy on the inclusion of disabled students in classrooms must account for the role of student mobility in shaping outcomes.Full Day Kindergarten Mandates and Child Maltreatment
Abstract
This study examines the effect of state-mandated full-day kindergarten (FDK) expansion on child maltreatment using National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCANDS) child-level data, State Inpatient Databases (SID) hospitalization discharges, and National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) mortality records. Leveraging the staggered rollout of FDK adoption across states with advanced difference-in-differences methods, we find that FDK policies lead to an increase of 3.5 physical abuse reports per 1,000 children, approximately 36% relative to the baseline mean. The absence of an effect on fatalities suggests that FDK primarily improves the detection of maltreatment rather than increasing its underlying incidence. Supporting this interpretation, educator-filed physical abuse reports rise by approximately 30%, reflecting enhanced detection capacity among teachers and school staff, and potentially replacing reports from other professions. Furthermore, the observed increases in reports from parents and neighbors suggest that FDK may foster stronger community awareness and social support networks. Overall, this research provides new evidence on the broader benefits of early childhood education, particularly its role in strengthening child safety environments.Higher Education or Just Higher? The Unintended Effects of Recreational Marijuana Legalization
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of recreational marijuana legalization (RML) on educational attainment in the United States. Exploiting variation from the staggered adoption of RML across states, I find that RML reduces the probability of earning a bachelor’s degree within four, five, and six years by 3.8%, 2.0%, and 3.1%, respectively. In addition, RML lowers the three-year graduation rate at two-year colleges by 6.0%. These effects suggests that RML not only delays degree completion but may also lower educational attainment in the longer run. I further find that RML reduces college students’ grade point average (GPA) and study time. Evidence on mechanisms suggests that these effects are driven in part by increases in persistent marijuana and other illicit drugs use among college-age individuals. These findings highlight the potential educational costs of marijuana legalization alongside the documented benefits identified in prior research.JEL Classifications
- I1 - Health