Michelle Spiegel
Biographic Data
| ID | 4226494 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle Spiegel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Spiegel |
| SIGNATURE | SPIEGEL M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Irvine |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6484-9714 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 5 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 5 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
When I Can Make Them Smile”: Cash Transfers and the Joys of Mothering in the Context of Poverty
Poverty researchers focus on whether interventions relieve material hardships and the stresses of financial insecurity. Although these are essential outcomes, a narrow focus on them can limit the evaluation of policy effectiveness. Further, the predominant focus in the field on individual outcomes may miss how policy matters for family relationships. The present study takes a relational perspective and attends to positive policy outcomes such as …
Pricing the priceless childcare: Early childhood education for babies and toddlers
This article connects Viviana Zelizer's theory of the social meaning of money to family studies, using the case of American parents’ spending on children. We investigate how money spent on the youngest children—babies and toddlers—reflects the growing expert emphasis on the importance of parental investment in the critical early period for child development. First, we review literature on expert knowledge to trace the shift in increasing emphasis…
Inequities in Student Exposure to Lead in Classroom Drinking Fountains: Descriptive Evidence Comparing Students within and Across Schools in Portland, Oregon
We use novel information about fixture-specific water lead levels (WLLs) in Portland, Oregon schools to explore inequalities in students’ potential for exposure to lead in drinking water at school. We find that Black and Hispanic students were in classrooms with higher WLLs than white students primarily because they attended different schools. The elevated exposure of students with non-English first languages was also largely driven by sorting in…
Parental investment and the economization of parenting
We argue that economists, as well as other social scientists, have increasingly focused on parenting as a means of building children’s human capital and reducing poverty. This is reflected, in part, in the use of the concept of ‘parental investment’ to study parenting, which has gained prominence over the past thirty years. This intellectual program is also evident in interventions targeting low-income parents to change parenting behavior to refl…
Pricing the priceless child 2.0: Children as human capital investment
This article takes Viviana Zelizer's (1985) Pricing the Priceless Child to the new millennium. Zelizer documented the transformation between the 19th and 20th century from an "economically useful" to an "emotionally priceless" child. She observed that by the 1930s, American children were practically economically worthless but invested with significant emotional value. What has happened to this emotionally priceless child at the dawn of the new mi…
Pricing the priceless child 2.0: Children as human capital investment
This article takes Viviana Zelizer's (1985) Pricing the Priceless Child to the new millennium. Zelizer documented the transformation between the 19th and 20th century from an "economically useful" to an "emotionally priceless" child. She observed that by the 1930s, American children were practically economically worthless but invested with significant emotional value. What has happened to this emotionally priceless child at the dawn of the new mi…
Parental investment and the economization of parenting
We argue that economists, as well as other social scientists, have increasingly focused on parenting as a means of building children’s human capital and reducing poverty. This is reflected, in part, in the use of the concept of ‘parental investment’ to study parenting, which has gained prominence over the past thirty years. This intellectual program is also evident in interventions targeting low-income parents to change parenting behavior to refl…
Pricing the priceless child 2.0: Children as human capital investment
This article takes Viviana Zelizer's (1985) Pricing the Priceless Child to the new millennium. Zelizer documented the transformation between the 19th and 20th century from an "economically useful" to an "emotionally priceless" child. She observed that by the 1930s, American children were practically economically worthless but invested with significant emotional value. What has happened to this emotionally priceless child at the dawn of the new mi…
Pricing the priceless childcare: Early childhood education for babies and toddlers
This article connects Viviana Zelizer's theory of the social meaning of money to family studies, using the case of American parents’ spending on children. We investigate how money spent on the youngest children—babies and toddlers—reflects the growing expert emphasis on the importance of parental investment in the critical early period for child development. First, we review literature on expert knowledge to trace the shift in increasing emphasis…
Inequities in Student Exposure to Lead in Classroom Drinking Fountains: Descriptive Evidence Comparing Students within and Across Schools in Portland, Oregon
We use novel information about fixture-specific water lead levels (WLLs) in Portland, Oregon schools to explore inequalities in students’ potential for exposure to lead in drinking water at school. We find that Black and Hispanic students were in classrooms with higher WLLs than white students primarily because they attended different schools. The elevated exposure of students with non-English first languages was also largely driven by sorting in…
Parental investment and the economization of parenting
We argue that economists, as well as other social scientists, have increasingly focused on parenting as a means of building children’s human capital and reducing poverty. This is reflected, in part, in the use of the concept of ‘parental investment’ to study parenting, which has gained prominence over the past thirty years. This intellectual program is also evident in interventions targeting low-income parents to change parenting behavior to refl…
When I Can Make Them Smile”: Cash Transfers and the Joys of Mothering in the Context of Poverty
Poverty researchers focus on whether interventions relieve material hardships and the stresses of financial insecurity. Although these are essential outcomes, a narrow focus on them can limit the evaluation of policy effectiveness. Further, the predominant focus in the field on individual outcomes may miss how policy matters for family relationships. The present study takes a relational perspective and attends to positive policy outcomes such as …
Early Childhood Education and Development (3 works) · Economics (3 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Investment (military (2 works) · Labour economics (2 works) · Parental Involvement in Education (2 works) · Politics (2 works) · Psychology (2 works) · Academic achievement (1 works)