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" If you have a traditional view of economics, you're probably thinking of Ben Bernanke making Fed policy, or the guys creating financial derivatives at Goldman Sachs. "

Emily Oster

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" One of the big take-aways from a lot of economic theory is that people should engage in consumption smoothing. "

" Prenatal testing is a complicated decision for many women, forcing us to confront concerns about a disabled child and risks of miscarriage. "

" No one likes doing chores. In happiness surveys, housework is ranked down there with commuting as activities that people enjoy the least. Maybe that's why figuring out who does which chores usually prompts, at best, tense discussion in a household and, at worst, outright fighting. "

" Every time you have a carrot instead of a cookie, every time you go to the gym instead of going to the movies, that's a costly investment in your health. But how much you want to invest is going to depend on how much longer you expect to live in the future, even if you don't make those investments. "

" Even if you are planning a birth with an epidural, the evidence suggests that a doula can help make things go much more smoothly. "

" I travel a fair amount, read on the plane, and I read fast. "

" My first summer in college I worked in a fruit fly lab where I had two jobs: dissect the fruit fly larvae brains and incinerate the old tubes of flies. "

" The value of having numbers - data - is that they aren't subject to someone else's interpretation. They are just the numbers. You can decide what they mean for you. "

" The enjoyment of work - to the extent that you have any - is likely highest in the first hours of the day when you are fresh, not tired, working on the most important things. "

" Almost every woman I have spoken to about pregnancy has a story about her doctor giving her a hard time about her weight. Later in my pregnancy it felt like all of my time with my doctor was focused on how fat I was getting - so fat! "

" How much is an hour of your time worth? It's worth whatever wage you would get if you spent that hour working. If you work for an hourly rate, this is an easy calculation. Even if you work for a salary and a fixed number of hours, the principle is the same: It's whatever your salary works out to per hour. "

" If you asked me which gives me more joy, my work or my family, there is no question that it's my family. Hands down. If I had to give one up, it wouldn't even be a contest. "

" I am extremely devoted to Amazon Prime - which offers speedier free deliveries, free movie streaming and other benefits for an annual fee - but I don't think it is great for groceries. "

" Being pregnant was a lot like being a child again. There was always someone telling you what to do. "

" The main concern with a very large baby is difficulty in delivery. "

" Economics works great for planning your life when you don't have a work passion, since we tend to assume that your job delivers only money and you trade off job hours with leisure hours. If you think your job will just be a job, pick one that pays well per hour and leaves you some time off, even if the activity of the job is boring. "

" When I meet people on airplanes and they find out I'm an economist, they usually ask about stock tips. "

" To put it mildly, I'm not crazy about the implication that pregnant women are incapable of deciding for themselves. "

" I've always loved doing research. I remember doing a research project on the Babylonian numeral system in the eighth grade and thinking, 'This is pretty awesome - is this really a job you can have?' This led me toward a career as an academic, although it took me until college to realise that economics was the right field. "

" I had always been told that you shouldn't clean the litter box when you're pregnant, because of your cat. And I think that is overblown - unless you have, like, three kittens in your house that are living outside and eating raw meat, this shouldn't really be a significant source of concern. "

" 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. "

" Feminists of my mother's generation argued that both mom and dad should work a little less and each do some of the household chores. My parents, for example, split everything 50/50. Even though my father is a terrible cook, he still made dinner exactly half the time. "

" Lovingly crafted and super-creative cupcakes are not exactly on tap in my household after a full day at work, and I do not blame my mother for a second that they were not on tap in hers, either. "

" As people do a task, they improve at it. "

" Talking to women about birth can be polarizing. "

" The biggest food-related risk in pregnancy is listeria. It's a dangerous bacteria, to which pregnant women are especially susceptible, that can lead to miscarriage or stillbirth. "

" In short, humans are programmed to get bored. "

" If everyone is good at something different, assigning chores is easy. If your partner is great at grocery shopping and you are great at the laundry, you're set. But this isn't always - or even usually - the case. "

" Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm. "

" The basic idea that incentives can be used to motivate behavior is a powerful one. It works for employees, and it has a clear place in parenting, as anyone who has tried to potty-train a recalcitrant toddler with sticker rewards knows. "