Sarah Komisarow

Journal article Economics of Education Review · December 1, 2026 In this paper, I investigate the causal impact of school-based support staff on student absences and chronic absenteeism using the introduction of the Child and Family Support Team (CFST) program in North Carolina. Introduced during the 2006/07 school year ... Full text Cite

Are Friends of Schools the Enemies of Equity? The Interplay of School Funding Policies and External Fundraising

Journal article Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis · January 1, 2026 School spending matters for student outcomes, and, while public schools are primarily funded with public sources, private fundraising for individual schools has increased. In this brief, we document variation in public and private funding across Chicago’s ... Full text Cite

When does crime respond to punishment?: Evidence from drug-free school zones

Journal article Journal of Urban Economics · May 1, 2025 Economic theory suggests that crime should respond to punishment severity. However, empirical evidence on this link is ambiguous. We propose one explanation for this discrepancy: Punishments deter crime but only when the probability of detection is moderat ... Full text Cite

SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CARE AND ABSENTEEISM: EVIDENCE FROM TELEMEDICINE

Journal article Education Finance and Policy · March 1, 2024 The prevalence of school-based health care has increased markedly over the past decade. We study a modern mode of school-based health care, telemedicine, that offers the potential to reach places and populations with historically low access to such care. S ... Full text Cite

CAN COMMUNITY CRIME MONITORING REDUCE STUDENT ABSENTEEISM?

Journal article Education Finance and Policy · March 1, 2023 In this paper we study the impact on student absenteeism of a large, school-based community crime monitoring program that employed local community members to monitor and report crime on designated city blocks during times when students traveled to and from ... Full text Cite

COMPREHENSIVE SUPPORT AND STUDENT SUCCESS: CAN OUT OF SCHOOL TIME MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Journal article Education Finance and Policy · September 1, 2022 StudentU is a comprehensive program that provides education, nutrition, and social support services to disadvantaged middle and high school students outside of the regular school day. In this paper I investigate the effects of this multiyear program on the ... Full text Cite

Are power plant closures a breath of fresh air? Local air quality and school absences

Journal article Journal of Environmental Economics and Management · March 1, 2022 In this paper we study the effects of three large, nearly-simultaneous coal-fired power plant closures on school absences in Chicago. We find that the closures resulted in a 6 percent reduction in absenteeism in nearby schools relative to those farther awa ... Full text Cite

The Effect of Coal-Fired Power Plant Closures on Emergency Department Visits for Asthma-Related Conditions Among 0- to 4-Year-Old Children in Chicago, 2009-2017.

Journal article American journal of public health · May 2021 Objectives. To investigate the effects of coal-fired power plant closures on zip code-level rates of emergency department visits for asthma-related conditions among 0- to 4-year-old children in Chicago, Illinois.Methods. We used data on wind, ... Full text Cite

Community monitoring and crime: Evidence from Chicago's Safe Passage Program

Journal article Journal of Public Economics · November 1, 2020 This paper investigates the effect of community-based monitoring on crime in the context of a school safety initiative that employed community members to monitor city blocks during students' travel to and from school. Although we find that total crime decr ... Full text Cite

Public health regulation and mortality: Evidence from early 20th century milk laws.

Journal article Journal of health economics · December 2017 In this paper, I estimate the impact of city-level public health regulations in the market for cow's milk on the mortality of infants and young children between 1900 and 1920. I find that the introduction of city-level dairy farm inspections reduced mortal ... Full text Cite