Emily Oster

Emily Oster
Oster in 2021
Born (1980-02-14) February 14, 1980
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation(s)Professor, author
SpouseJesse Shapiro
Children2
Parent(s)Sharon Oster and Ray Fair
Academic background
EducationHarvard University (BA, PhD)
Doctoral advisorMichael Kremer
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Chicago
Brown University
Notable worksExpecting Better, Cribsheet, The Family Firm

Emily Fair Oster (born February 14, 1980) is an American economist who has served as the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence at Brown University since 2019, where she has been a professor of economics since 2015.[1][2] Her research interests span from development economics and health economics to research design and experimental methodology. Her research was brought to the attention of non-economists through the Wall Street Journal, the book SuperFreakonomics, and her 2007 TED Talk.

Oster is the author of four books, Expecting Better, The Family Firm,[3] The Unexpected, and Cribsheet, which discuss a data-driven approach to decision-making in pregnancy and parenting.[4][5]

Early life

Oster was born on February 14, 1980, in New Haven, Connecticut. Her parents, Sharon Oster and Ray Fair, were both professors of economics at Yale University.[6][7] When she was two years old, Oster's parents noticed that she talked to herself in her crib after they left her room. They placed a tape recorder in her room in order to find out what she was saying and passed the tapes on to a linguist and psychologist with whom they were friends. Analysis of Oster's speech showed that her language was much more complex when she was alone than when interacting with adults. This led to her being the subject of a series of academic papers which were collectively published as a compendium in 1989 titled Narratives from the Crib.[8][9]

After graduating from Choate Rosemary Hall in 1998, Oster studied economics at Harvard University, graduating in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts. She then did doctoral studies in economics at Harvard under Michael Kremer. She received a Ph.D. in 2006 with a thesis titled "The Economics of Infectious Disease".[1][10][11]

Career

From 2006 to 2007, Oster was a Becker Fellow at the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago, where she was an assistant professor at the Department of Economics from 2007 to 2009, an assistant professor at the Booth School of Business from 2009 to 2011, and an associate professor from 2011 to 2014.[12][1] She became a tenured associate professor of economics at Brown University in 2015, where she has been a full professor of economics since 2016 and the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence since 2019.[1][13][5] She is also the CEO of ParentData, a data-driven website she founded in 2020 that explores parenting practices.

Oster has been a research associate at the NBER since 2015, where she was a faculty research fellow from 2006 to 2015, and has been an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics since 2014.[1]

Oster's research focuses generally on development economics and health. In 2005, Oster published a dissertation for her economics Ph.D. from Harvard University, which suggested that the unusually high ratio of men to women in China was partially due to the effects of the hepatitis B virus.[14] "Hepatitis B and the Case of the Missing Women,"[15][9] pointed to findings that suggested areas with high hepatitis B rates tended to have higher male-to female birth ratios. Oster argued that the fact that hepatitis B can cause a woman to conceive male children more often than female, accounted for a bulk of the "missing women" in Amartya Sen's 1990 essay, "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing."[16] Oster noted that the use of hepatitis B vaccine in 1982 led to a sharp decline in the male-to-female birth ratio.[9] Sen's essay had attributed the "missing women" to societal discrimination against girls and women in the form of the allocation of health, educational, and food resources.[9]

In April 2008, Oster released a working paper "Hepatitis B Does Not Explain Male-Biased Sex Ratios in China" in which she evaluated new data, which showed that her original research was incorrect.[17] Freakonomics author Steven Levitt saw this as a sign of integrity.[18]

In a 2007 TED Talk, Oster discussed the spread of HIV in Africa, applying a cost-benefit analysis to the question of why African men have been slow to change their sexual behavior.[19]

Oster's work on television and female empowerment in India was featured in Steve Levitt's second book, SuperFreakonomics.[20]

Books

In her book, Expecting Better, published in 2013, Oster criticizes conventional pregnancy customs, taboos and mores. She discusses the data behind common pregnancy practices and argues that many of them are misleading.[21] As of March 2019, the book has sold over 100,000 copies.[22] A revised and updated version of the book was published in 2021.

In the book, Oster argues against the general rule of thumb to avoid alcohol consumption while pregnant, contends that there is no evidence that (low) levels of alcohol consumption by pregnant women adversely affect their children.[23] This claim, however, has drawn criticism from the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome[24] and others.[25]

Her second book, Cribsheet, was published in April 2019 and was a New York Times best seller.[26][27] It evaluates and reviews the research on a variety of parenting topics relating to infants and toddlers, including breastfeeding, safe sleep guidelines, sleep training, and potty training.[28][29] The week of April 28, 2019, Cribsheet was also the best selling book in Washington, DC according to the Post.[30]

Her third book, The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years, applies to school age children. A review discusses the relationship of her parenting approach to more permissive parenting ideas dating back to the pre-Reagan era.[31] Oster suggests that parents run their families like firms in order to maximize their children's' advantage over others.[32]

COVID-19 and schools

Oster was an advocate for opening schools during the coronavirus epidemic, spearheading a project to collect data on the spread of coronavirus in schools,[33] and appearing frequently in media discussing why schools should open. In early October 2020, she wrote an influential and much cited article in The Atlantic entitled "Schools Aren't Super-Spreaders" which inspired numerous articles.[34][35][36] Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the CDC cited Oster's work as a reason to open schools during the pandemic.[37][38] In August 2020, Oster launched a dashboard compiling information on the spread of COVID-19 in schools. Critics of Oster's dashboard said it had methodological problems that they believe undermine its usefulness.[39]

On May 18, 2021, Oster published another piece in The Atlantic titled "Your Unvaccinated Kid Is Like a Vaccinated Grandma", which generated much heated response.[40] The controversy surrounds Oster use of vaccination as an individualistic risk-reward proposition, insinuating that unvaccinated kids are still relatively safe from COVID, and the lack of mention of kids being spreaders of the infections themselves.[40] Critics pointed out such rhetoric may lead the lay audience to wrongly believe there is no urgent need to vaccinate.[40]

In September 2021, Oster launched the COVID-19 School Data Hub which includes information on virtual and in person status of schools across 31 states. According to The New York Times, the data hub is "one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to document how schools operated during the pandemic."[41]

On October 31, 2022, The Atlantic published an opinion piece written by Oster in which she called for "amnesty" following the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the "tremendous uncertainty" surrounding topics such as the virus, face masks, social distancing, school closures and COVID-19 vaccines.[42]

Personal life

Emily is the daughter of Sharon Oster and Ray Fair, both professors of economics at Yale University. She married Jesse Shapiro, also an economist,[43] in June 2006,[44] and they have two children.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Emily Oster" (PDF). emilyoster.net.
  2. ^ Green, Jaime (April 23, 2019). "Is This the Millennial Parent Book?". The Cut. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  3. ^ "Get Your Family Running More Smoothly With Tricks From Running Small Businesses : Life Kit". NPR.org. Retrieved September 3, 2021.
  4. ^ Louis, Catherine Saint (August 19, 2013). "Pregnant, and Disputing the Doctor". Well. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  5. ^ a b Goldstein, Dana (June 22, 2021). "She Fought to Reopen Schools, Becoming a Hero and a Villain". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  6. ^ Hoby, Hermione (August 20, 2013). "Drop the baby talk". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
  7. ^ Dieterle, David A. (March 27, 2017). Economics: The Definitive Encyclopedia from Theory to Practice [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 257. ISBN 9780313397080.
  8. ^ "Narratives from the Crib — Katherine Nelson | Harvard University Press". www.hup.harvard.edu. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  9. ^ a b c d Dubner, Stephen J.; Levitt, Steven D. (2005). "The Search for 100 Million Missing Women". Slate. Retrieved October 15, 2006.
  10. ^ Norman, Kimberly (January 24, 2014). "Expecting Better". Choate Rosemary Hall Bulletin (Winter 2014): 61.
  11. ^ Emily Oster [@ProfEmilyOster] (April 14, 2017). "For the other Choate alums out there: an extremely disturbing report on sexual abuse" (Tweet). Retrieved April 14, 2023 – via Twitter.
  12. ^ "Emily Oster | Watson Institute". Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Archived from the original on January 20, 2022. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  13. ^ "Friedman, Oster and Shapiro join Brown Economics Department | Economics Department at Brown University". www.brown.edu. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  14. ^ Lahart, Justin (May 22, 2008). "Economist Scraps Hepatitis Theory On China's 'Missing Women'". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  15. ^ "Oster's Ph.D dissertation on 'Missing Women'" (PDF). Journal of Political Economy. 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 3, 2007. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
  16. ^ Sen, Amartya, "More Than 100 Million Womer Are Missing, The New York Review of Books, Vol. 37, No. 20 "The New York Review of Books: More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing". Archived from the original on May 4, 2013. Retrieved May 5, 2013.
  17. ^ "Hepatitis B Does Not Explain Male-Biased Sex Ratios in China" (PDF). 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 18, 2010. Retrieved May 21, 2008.
  18. ^ Levitt, Steven D. (May 22, 2008). "An Academic Does the Right Thing". Freakonomics: The hidden side of everything. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  19. ^ Conway, Laura (July 28, 2009). "Got A Riddle? Ask Economist Emily Oster". Planet Money: The economy explained. npr. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  20. ^ Robb, Richard (November 18, 2009). "Extreme Economics". Forbes. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  21. ^ Levitt, Steven D. (September 3, 2013). "Emily Oster Answers Your Pregnancy Questions". Freakonomics. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  22. ^ "Emily Oster on Instagram: "Guess what? #ExpectingBetter has officially sold over 100,00 copies! 🎉 I'm so grateful and excited for the new journey to come with…"". Instagram. Archived from the original on December 25, 2021. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  23. ^ Oster, Emily (October 21, 2015). "'No Alcohol' During Pregnancy Is Just Another Shame Battle in the Mommy Wars". Time. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
  24. ^ "Emily Oster's Alcohol and Pregnancy Advice is Deeply Flawed and Harmful". NOFAS. August 16, 2013. Archived from the original on March 15, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
  25. ^ "The Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Right—Do NOT Drink while Pregnant" (PDF). University of Washington. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
  26. ^ Boretz, Adam (January 18, 2019). "The Science of Parenting: PW Talks with Emily Oster". Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  27. ^ "Emily Oster | Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  28. ^ LaScala, Marisa (April 23, 2019). "The Data Driven Parenting Book You Need". Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  29. ^ Kimball, Jill (April 23, 2019). "In 'Cribsheet,' a Brown economist debunks long-held parenting myths". Brown University. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  30. ^ "Washington bestsellers: Hardcover nonfiction". The Washington Post. April 28, 2019. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  31. ^ Bellafante, Ginia (June 9, 2022). "Mothers Under Pressure". New York Review of Books. LXIX (10): 36–40.
  32. ^ Sussman, Anna Louie (October 29, 2024). "Emily Oster and the Optimization of Parenting". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved February 12, 2025.
  33. ^ "Brown University Professor Emily Oster and Qualtrics Partner with School Superintendents and Principals Associations to Launch the National COVID-19 School Response Dashboard". Qualtrics. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  34. ^ Oster, Emily (October 9, 2020). "Schools Aren't Super-Spreaders". The Atlantic. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  35. ^ McGowan, Dan McGowan. "Meet the Brown University economist who argues that K-12 schools aren't super-spreaders of the coronavirus". The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  36. ^ Oster, Emily (September 28, 2020). "Opinion | What Parents Need to Know About School Coronavirus Case Data". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  37. ^ DeVos, Betsy. ""It's now October. We are starting to get an evidence-based picture of how school reopenings and remote learning are going… the evidence is pointing in one direction. Schools do not, in fact, appear to be major spreaders of COVID-19."". @BetsyDeVosED.
  38. ^ "CDC director cites this website to back in-school learning. Its designer calls that 'bananas'. (interview with Emily Oster) | Watson Institute". Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  39. ^ Cohen, Rachel M. (October 28, 2020). "Why Reopening Schools Has Become the Most Fraught Debate of the Pandemic". The American Prospect. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  40. ^ a b c North, Anna (July 19, 2021). "How Emily Oster became one of the most respected — and reviled — voices of the pandemic". Vox. Retrieved February 12, 2025.
  41. ^ Goldstein, Dana (September 15, 2021). "Emily Oster, the Brown economist, is launching a new data hub on schools and the pandemic". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 15, 2021.
  42. ^ Oster, Emily (October 31, 2022). "Let's Declare a Pandemic Amnesty". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on October 31, 2022. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
  43. ^ "Jesse Shapiro". University of Chicago. 2006. Archived from the original on November 5, 2006. Retrieved October 15, 2006.
  44. ^ "Emily Oster and Jesse Shapiro". The New York Times. June 18, 2006. Retrieved December 31, 2007.
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