Emily Oster Quotes
Prenatal testing is a complicated decision for many women, forcing us to confront concerns about a disabled child and risks of miscarriage.
The key to good decision making is evaluating the available information - the data - and combining it with your own estimates of pluses and minuses. As an economist, I do this every day.
For many women - myself included - pregnancy brings on tremendous anxiety and confusion, along with the joy.
Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm.
There is some risk to increase birth defects if you do a lot of outdoor gardening when you are pregnant. That can increase rates of toxoplasmosis.
I think we've moved to thinking of parenting and pregnancy as something in which you should lose yourself.
Economists actually disagree about whether there are significant economic returns from attending an elite college versus a less-selective one.
When I meet people on airplanes and they find out I'm an economist, they usually ask about stock tips.
One of the big take-aways from a lot of economic theory is that people should engage in consumption smoothing.
Being pregnant was a lot like being a child again. There was always someone telling you what to do.
Even if you are planning a birth with an epidural, the evidence suggests that a doula can help make things go much more smoothly.
Because economics is all about optimising, doing the best you can with what you have - it's usually the first place you should look for answers if you want to maximise your happiness.
