The 1990s were a period of record immigration to California and the United States, with both legal and unauthorized immigrants arriving in the country and state, a trend that will likely continue in the twenty-first century. Many observers have been concerned that a bimodal pattern of immigrant education, with many immigrants either being poorly or very well educated, overlaps too closely with the increasingly polarized distribution of job growth in the country. The authors analysis of changing employment patterns and the shifting distribution of bad and good jobs in the 19942000 economic boom suggests, however, that immigration is not fundamentally driving the emergenceof a polarized job structure in either California or the United States. That structure derives largely from changes among the native born, suggesting that shifts in labor demand explain the pattern, rather than increases in the supply of less-skilled and highly skilled immigrant workers. Immigrantsin California, however, do contribute to the polarization to varying degrees, depending on race/ethnicity, gender, and location. The authors analysis of arrival cohort data suggests substantial immigrant upward mobility, mainly from lower to middle-range jobs in Los Angeles and from middle to higher range jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area. This does not mean that predictions basedon racial/ethnic stratification theories are inaccurate, but it does suggest that such perspectives should be modified by taking into account the effects of newcomer status and the likelihood that immigrants may experience more upward mobility than many commentators presume.

A large recent literature argues that financial development contributes to economic growth. We assess this finding in light of insights from both the banking literature (Calomiris [1992, 2000], Wheelock [1992], Wheelock and Kumbhakar [1995], Wheelock and Wilson [1995], and White [1981, 1982, 1983]) and the recent literature that has studied the importance of institutions in determining economic growth (see inter alia Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson [2000] and Djankov, Glaeser, La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, and Schleifer [2003]). We contend that the institutional mechanism leading to financial development is important in determining its consequences and that some types of financial development even retard economic growth. We study the effect of state-level banking regulation on financial development and components of state-level growth in the United States from 1900 to 1940. We argue that financial expansion induced by expanded bank branching accelerated the mechanization of agriculture and spurred growth in manufacturing. By contrast, financial expansions induced by state deposit insurance had negative consequences for both the agriculture and manufacturing sectors.

In Household and Family in Past Time (1972) Peter Laslett explicitly differentiated the study of kin relations within the domestic group from the study of of those beyond it. Yet in subsequent decades the latter project - the conceptualization of the domestic group within the larger kin group - has not proceeded very fiar, even though it can easily be pictured as the 'next step' in micro-structural research. In part this is due to the inherent difficulties of recreating the larger kinship context precisely on the basis,of available evidence. However, it is also because of changing conceptualizations of kinship and because demographic change demonstrably reduced the number of identifiable kin. In this project is to be pursued, its costs and benefits have to be weighed. On the one hand, the larger kin group may not have been important even if it can be identified as a group; also, migration might have dispersed kin groups so that only a few personal kin remained beyond the domestic group. On the other hand, the significance of kin groups is an empirical question which needs to be tested against historical evidence. Individuals also certainly had personal kin communities that were not corporate groups but still could have influenced the behaviors of persons within the domestic group. It is best to assume about the past that the domestic domain and the kinship domain interacted, creating the starting point for an interactive theory consisting of five propositions and their corollaries, outlined in the article.

The slowdown in economic growth and rising unemployment in the euro area, with major economies slipping into recession, have revealed serious fault lines in the stability and growth pact governing the euro area’s macroeconomic policies. The pact dictates that budget deficits must not exceed 3% of GDP, with a requirement budgets are in balance or surplus on average. Countries that do not adhere to these limits are threatened with fines. It should come as no surprise that slowdown pushes up deficits and has taken some countries over the 3% limit, notably in Germany and France. For now, penalties for countries exceeding the limit have not been imposed and countries are given up to four years to meet the budget deficit requirements. Although there has been some bend- ing of them, the rules remain in place. Indeed, the European Central Bank and members of the com- mission are demanding strict adherence to the rules of the pact in future. They are supported by the small countries of the eurozone, which complain that it is unfair for them to have to adhere to the pact while its main architects, Germany and France, do not. The ECB and some governments view the zone’s slowdown as the result of structural factors— labour market rigidities above all—and the failure to tackle burgeoning budget deficits. The rigidi- ties, though, have been around for a long time: during the 50s and 60s, when many European economies were booming, especially Germany’s “economic miracle” of the 70s. It is adherence to the pact’s rules to limit budget deficits, which thereby can require tax rises and expenditure cuts in the face of recession, that has promoted the present slowdown. This has not been helped by the ECB’s inability to take action to stimulate the zone’s economies. The recession has raised severe questions about the appropriateness of the institutional and policy arrangements governing the single currency and their ability to deal with unemployment, recession and inflation.

This analysis utilizes data from the 1920 and 1970 Public Use Microdata Samples to examine the occupational status of immigrants and native-born blacks and whites in northern urban areas at the beginning and end of the Great Migration. In general, for both time periods we find that native-born black men, southern migrants and native northerners alike, fared worse than immigrants in terms of average SEI and level of white-collar employment. Further, we find that in 1920 southern-born and northern-born black women were more likely to be in the labor force and, when in the labor force, more likely to be employed in service occupations than were immigrant women. By 1970 the racial and ethnic differences in female employment patterns had grown considerably weaker. These findings suggest that immigrants from a range of countries made faster occupational progress than blacks throughout the Great Migration, despite important social and economic gains for blacks during the period. The evidence points toward a racially and ethnically defined occupational queue that left blacks at the bottom throughout these fifty years and helped to ensure their generally disadvantaged position in American society.

This thesis consists of three unrelated essays in the fields of labor and urban economics. The first essay exploits the creation of a formal college system in Quebec in the late 1960's as a quasi-experiment to estimate the value of community college. Focusing on the effect of the policy on English-speaking Quebecois, the creation of the CEGEPs (Colleges of General and Vocational Education) is shown to increase schooling by about a third of a year for both men and women, without diverting students from university. Despite increasing educational attainment, estimates of the impact of CEGEP on wages are negative. Analysis suggests the negative estimates can be understood as a combination of lost labor market experience, a decrease in the return to university, and an insignificant return to CEGEP. The results are robust to the inclusion of controls and across years of data. Possible interpretations of the results are discussed. The second essay, co-authored with William Wheaton, examinesthe relationship between labor market agglomeration and wages. Using the 5% public use micro sample of the 1990 U.S. census, we find that observationally equivalent workers in the manufacturing sector earn higher wages when they are in urban labor markets that have a larger share of national or metropolitan employment in their same occupation and industry groups. Quantitatively, the effect is large, with an elasticity (measured at the means) of between 1.2 and 3.6 for these effects. We interpret the willingness of firms to pay more for equivalent workers in dense markets as evidence of an agglomeration economy in urban labor. The third chapter estimates the effect of employment dispersion on average commute times in American cities. Using a sample of over two hundred cities, I find that residents of cities where employment is more geographically disperse have lower average commute times than residents of cities where employment is more centralized. The results are robust to theinclusion of city fixed effects. An instrumental variables strategy is employed to try to account for potential simultaneity between changes in employment dispersion and changes in commute times.

The following discussion offers a perspectiveabout the major accomplishments ofIASSIST over the past decade. Particularattention is paid to areas that are recognizedas strengths of the organization and in whichthere have been notable successes. Manyof the actions and outcomes in these areasflow from the goals embraced by IASSIST atthe beginning of the 1990s. It is hoped thatthis discussion will assist in reviewing thesegoals and in setting directions for the future.

The Social Security Disability benefit programs (SSDI and SSI) constitute an essential safety net for individuals unable to work because of disability. Eligibility for SSDI is based on work history and is viewed as an entitlement for individuals who meet disability criteria. SSI eligibility, however, depends on means testing and, although it is administered as a Social Security program, is seen more as income support for persons with disabilities who have not worked and cannot work. Ideally, such programs seek to provide assistance to those who most need it without encouraging those who can work to leave the workforce or to stop looking for work. The search for balance among meeting need, encouraging work, and containing public expenditures is a source of underlying tension that typifies such safety net programs. Outcomes depend on both the administration of the eligibility process and the processes by which persons and their associates become aware of the disability program, decide to apply, negotiate the application process, and succeed or fail in their attempts. Persons with mental disorders are less likely to be working and more likely to apply for and receive SSDI and/or SSI benefits than are those without such disorders. Data from the National Health Interview Survey on Disability (NHIS‐D) were examined to identify the predictors of SSDI/SSI application and receipt among persons with self‐reported mental disorders. Compared with nonapplicants, applicants had higher levels of disability, fewer financial and interpersonal resources, and better access to information about the disability programs. Among applicants, similar factors distinguished recipients from those who did not receive benefits. Navigating the disability process is associated with the extent of impairment, economic and social disadvantage, and linkage to the disability determination process.

This paper uses a of 30 year old male from the 1990 Census PUMS data to explore the effects that age of arrival and ethnic capital have on the standard of living of immigrants. It finds that both time of arrival and ethnic capital affect Imrmgrants standard of livingthrough a set of interaction effects and indirect effects. In particular, immigrants who arrive as children enjoy greater returns to human capital investments than immigrants who arrive as young adults. Moreover, immigrants who arrive as children are affected less than young adult immigrants by the ethnic capital of the group that they join in the United States. Further, age of arrival and ethnic capital are found to have indirect effects on immigrants' standard of living through their influence on educational attainment and language proficiency.

In 1900, Americans were bitterly divided by region. They remembered the Civil War it was as recent to them as the Vietnam War is to us in 2003 and their memories were regularly refreshed by politicians waving the bloody shirt. Even before the War Between the States, Americans had harped on cultural differences between North and South, East and West. Many Midwesterners, for example, used the verb to yankee to mean to cheat. Southerners saw their region as a civilization apart; its racial composition was distinct and its economic backwardness deep. So far apart were the regions that as late as the 1910s northern employers were more likely to seek workers in Europe than in the South...

It is commonly observed that over time and across societies, women tend to marry older men. The traditional explanation for this phenomenon is that wages increase with age and hence older men are more attractive in the marriage market. This explanation, however, involves an implicit assumption about female specialization in home production-an assumption that does not completely hold, especially in modern times. This paper shows that a marriage market equilibrium where women marry earlier in life than men can be achieved without making any assumptions about the wage process or gender roles. The only driving force in this model is the asymmetry in fertility horizons between men and women. When the model is calibrated with Census Data, the average age at first marriage and the pattern of the sex ratio of single men to single women over different age groups mimics the patterns observed in developed countries during the last decade (e.g. France, the U.S. and Sweden). JEL Classification: J12, D83