Browsing by Author "Chu, Yu-Wei Luke"

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Do medical marijuana laws increase hard drug use?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) Chu, Yu-Wei Luke
Medical marijuana laws generate significant policy debates regarding drug policy. In particular, if marijuana is a complement or a gateway drug to hard drugs, these laws would increase not only the usage of marijuana but hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin. In this paper, I empirically study the relationships between marijuana and cocaine or heroin by analyzing data on drug possession arrests and rehabilitation treatment admissions. I find that medical marijuana laws increase marijuana arrests and treatments by 10–20%. However, there is no evidence that cocaine and heroin usage increases after the passage of medical marijuana laws. In fact, the estimates on cocaine and heroin arrests or treatments are uniformly negative. From the arrest data, the estimates indicate a 0–20% decrease in possession arrests for cocaine and heroin combined. From the treatment data, the estimates show a 20% decrease in heroin treatments but no significant effect on cocaine treatments. These results suggest that marijuana could be a substitute for heroin.
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Do Struggling Students Benefit From Continued Student Loan Access? Evidence From University and Beyond
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2020) Chu, Yu-Wei Luke; Cuffe, Harold E
We estimate the effects of access to student loans on university students’ educational attainment and labor market returns in New Zealand. We exploit the introduction of a policy mandating a minimum pass rate of 50% for student loan renewals using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and linked administrative records. For students around the threshold, retaining access to student loans increases their likelihood of re-enrollment and bachelor’s degree completion rate. The effects are observed primarily among female students due to a substantial gender difference in compliance with the pass rate criterion. We find that retaining student loan access leads to large labor market returns for struggling female students. The additional student loan debt from further borrowing declines quickly due to faster repayment.
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The effects of medical marijuana laws on illegal marijuana use
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) Chu, Yu-Wei Luke
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that allow individuals to use marijuana for medical purposes. There is an ongoing heated policy debate over whether these laws have increased marijuana use among non-patients. In this paper, I address that question empirically by studying marijuana possession arrests in cities from 1988 to 2008. I estimate fixed effects models with city-specific time trends that can condition on unobserved heterogeneities across cities in both their levels and trends. I find that these laws increase marijuana arrests among adult males by about 15–20%. These results are further validated by findings from data on treatment admissions to rehabilitation facilities: marijuana treatments increased by 10–20% after the passage of medical marijuana laws.
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Joint culpability: The effects of medical marijuana laws on crime
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2017) Chu, Yu-Wei Luke; Townsend, Wilbur
Most U.S. states have passed medical marijuana laws. In this paper, we study the effects of these laws on violent and property crime. We first estimate models that control for city fixed effects and flexible city-specific time trends. To supplement this regression analysis we use the synthetic control method which can relax the parallel trend assumption and better account for heterogeneous policy effects. Both the regression analysis and the synthetic control method suggest no causal effects of medical marijuana laws on violent or property crime at the national level. We also find no strong effects within individual states, except for in California where the medical marijuana law reduced both violent and property crime by 20%.
Open Access
Motherhood Employment Penalty and Gender Wage Gap Across Countries: 1990–2010
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2021) Chu, Yu-Wei Luke; Cuffe, Harold E; Doan, Nguyen
In this paper, we employ twin birth as an instrument to estimate the effects of fertility on female employment using 72 censuses from 37 countries in 1990–2010. Next, we document a strong linear association between gender wage gap and the estimated motherhood employment penalty both across countries and within countries. Reductions in the gender wage gap are associated with decreases in motherhood employment penalty. Our estimates suggest that a reduction of one percentage-point in the gender wage gap is associated with a decrease of 0.4 percentage-points in the estimated motherhood employment penalty. Our finding supports the notion that job prospects and gender equality in the labor market play a direct role in a mother’s labor supply response to childbirth.
Open Access
What we still need to know about the impacts of medical marijuana laws in the United States?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2018) Chu, Yu-Wei Luke
Past-month marijuana use among adolescents does not increase after the passage of medical marijuana laws in the U.S. It is crucial for future research to explore causal mechanisms affecting different types of marijuana users to bring a deeper understanding of behavioral responses to marijuana polices.