Haedong Aiden Rho

This paper uses daily Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to estimate the causal effect of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, a highly competitive race whose outcome resolved lingering uncertainty on election day, on mental-health and life-satisfaction outcomes through a regression discontinuity design. Following the resolution of electoral uncertainty on election day, we find a sharp and persistent post-election decline in subjective well-being, concentrated among female, non-White, urban, and more-educated respondents. These findings reveal an expected-outcome shock, showing that political polarization itself, not electoral surprise, can act as a chronic psychological stressor.

This paper evaluates the effects of a 2014 school policy in South Korea that delayed start times to 9:00 a.m. for all public middle and high schools in one of the country’s largest regions. Using a difference-in-differences design and nationally representative data from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey (KYRBS), I estimate the impact of the policy on students’ sleep duration and mental health outcomes. The reform led to an average increase of approximately 16 minutes in weekday sleep, primarily through later wake-up times. Despite this measurable gain, I find no significant changes in mental health indicators, including stress, depression, suicide ideation, and self-reported happiness. Two-stage least squares estimates, using the policy as an instrument for sleep, reinforce these null results, suggesting that modest increases in sleep may not be sufficient to yield meaningful psychological improvements. These findings underscore the limits of light-touch sleep interventions and emphasize the role of broader social and institutional contexts in shaping adolescent well-being.

This paper investigates the impact of the 2016 U.S. presidential election on infant health, leveraging the unexpected outcome of the election as a quasi-natural experiment. Using restricted-use individual-level natality data from the CDC, we implement a difference-in-differences design to compare birth outcomes for infants exposed in utero during the election result period. We first examine differential responses by county-level political leaning, finding that birth weights declined modestly—but statistically significantly—in more Democratic-leaning counties. We then analyze maternal ethnicity as an alternative dimension of exposure, comparing outcomes between Hispanic and non-Hispanic mothers. In both approaches, we find small reductions in birth weight following the election, with limited evidence of effects on other outcomes such as prematurity or gestational age. These findings suggest that political shocks may generate modest physiological responses during pregnancy, though their interpretation requires caution given potential confounding factors.