Pragati Dahal

We examine the impact of broadband expansion on mental health in U.S. counties. Improved internet access may benefit mental health through telehealth and health information, yet it may also harm it through social displacement and screen-time effects, leaving the net effect theoretically ambiguous. We build a county-year panel (2008–2025) combining FCC broadband data with County Health Rankings, CDC PLACES, and ACS data. Exploiting staggered adoption of higher-speed thresholds across counties in a difference-in-differences framework, we estimate causal effects on outcomes such as frequent mental distress and poor mental health days. We further use causal forest methods to characterize treatment effect heterogeneity and identify who experiences the largest impacts.

Despite substantial gains in education and workforce participation, women in the United States remain persistently underrepresented in political office. This study examines whether Campaign Funds for Childcare (CFCC) policies influence the share of women running for elected positions, drawing on three complementary datasets that capture variation across federal, state, and local elections. CFCC policies permit candidates to use campaign resources for childcare, easing potential burdens that disproportionately fall on women and potentially lowering barriers to entry. Using Two-Way Fixed Effects and staggered Difference-in-Differences estimators, we find overall evidence of policy effects to be weak and statistically insignificant among federal and state elections. However, in local elections, the earliest cohort of treated jurisdictions exhibits a notable increase in female participation approximately four years after policy implementation, indicating that heterogeneous or delayed responses may exist even if broad, systematic effects remain limited.

Potato Virus Y (PVY) is one of the most economically significant pathogens in seed potato systems, causing substantial yield losses and seed certification downgrades. This paper evaluates the economic efficiency of six PVY management strategies involving mineral oils and insecticides, using multi-year field trial data from Idaho. A partial budgeting approach is applied to assess trade-offs between PVY suppression and net revenue. Results show that while certain treatment combinations effectively reduce virus incidence, the at-plant insecticide plus weekly oil treatment generates the highest net revenue across potato size classes. Intensive insecticide-oil combinations prove cost-ineffective under commercial production conditions, underscoring the need for cost-conscious management practices.