Although researchers have found an inverse relationship between length of U.S. residence and health, research on this issue among African-born immigrants is limited. Data from the 2011–2015 National Health Interview Surveys were pooled for African-born immigrants (N = 1137) and used to estimate weighted ordinary least squares regression models on self-reported health, adjusting for common immigrant health predictors. Length of U.S. residence was associated with significant health status declines only among those that had lived in the U.S. for 10 to less than 15 years (b = − 0.235, p < 0.05), net of covariates. African-born immigrants may have both different selection processes than other immigrants and not follow common integration patterns. These findings suggest that existing immigrant health frameworks may need modification to fully apply to this growing U.S. immigrant population.

While labor studies of the effects of income taxation have often focused on labor force participation and work hour decisions, Feldstein (1995) argued that taxpayers ultimately want to adjust their taxable income in response to changes in marginal tax rates. He also pointed out that adjusting taxable income is not limited to changing hours of work. For instance, facing higher tax rates, individuals may reduce their taxable income by giving up high-paid occupations that require high levels of effort in exchange for jobs that pay lower wages but are less onerous. In this dissertation, I examine how individuals change their occupations to adjust their wages, levels of work effort, and number of work hours in response to changes in marginal tax rates. In particular, I estimate effects of the switch from separate to joint taxation at the federal level in 1948 on married couples’ occupations. This policy increased marginal tax rates for wives but decreased them for husbands. My results show that joint taxation had no effect on husbands, reduced labor force participation rates among wives, and induced wives who remained in the labor force to choose occupations that paid lower wages, required lower effort, but involved the same level of full-time work. These results reveal that under some circumstances, individuals may respond to higher tax rates by reducing work effort instead of reducing work hours. The largest effects of joint taxation were on middle-age wives, who faced the largest husband-wife earning gap among all wives.

Combining a variety of survey and administrative data, this paper measures the progressivity of taxes and transfers for each of the US states and contrasts it to progressivity at the federal level. Our findings are fourfold: (i) the tax and transfer system is progressive at the federal level; (ii) state and local tax and transfer systems are close to proportional, on average: the regressivity of state consumption and property taxes neutralizes the progressivity of state income taxes and transfers; (iii) there is substantial heterogeneity across states, and its key determinant is the choice of the tax base (sales and property vs income); (iv) Democrat-leaning states tend to have more progressive systems, but richer and more unequal states tend to me more regressive.

The long run viability of stable multiethnic residential integration is perennially in question. This study compares the intergenerational reproduction of racially segregated residential contexts to the reproduction of multiethnic contexts to provide new insight into the social processes that influence residential integration. The data for this study come from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the U.S. Census. Conditional logit models analyze patterns of residential reproduction and mobility for white and black families across a comprehensive typology of racially segregated and integrated neighborhoods. The results provide some support for the premise of a “diversity effect,” that children raised in integrated settings are more likely to attain diverse neighborhood environments in adulthood. The results also demonstrate a far stronger propensity to reproduce predominantly white and predominantly black neighborhood contexts than multiethnic contexts. The comparative ease through which racially segregated contexts are reproduced presents a challenge to the future growth and stability of multiethnic residential integration. The implications for theories of spatial incorporation that frame debates about race and ethnic relations are discussed.

Background and aims: Chronic inflammation is associated with premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). We studied the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors (CRFs) amongst individuals with IBD who have not developed ASCVD. Methods: Our study population was derived from the 2015-2016 National Health Interview Survey. Those with ASCVD (defined as myocardial infarction, angina or stroke) were excluded. The prevalence of CRFs among individuals with IBD was compared with those without IBD. The odds CRFs among adults with IBD was assessed using logistic regression models. Results: In our study population of 60,155 individuals, 786 (1.3%) had IBD. IBD was associated with increased odds hypertension (odds ratio [OR] 1.71, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.39-2.09), diabetes (OR 1.68, 95% CI 1.22-2.32), hypercholesterolemia (OR 1.62, 95% CI 1.32-2.99) and insufficient physical activity (OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.16-1.66). Conclusion: IBD is associated with higher prevalence of CRFs. Early screening and risk mitigation strategies are warranted.

Introduction While there has been considerable analysis of the health and economic effects of COVID-19 in the Global North, representative data on the distribution and depth of social and economic impacts in Africa has been more limited. Methods We analyze household data collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and during the first wave of COVID in four African countries. We evaluate the short-term changes to household economic status and assess women’s access to health care during the first wave of COVID-19 in nationally representative samples of women aged 15–49 in Kenya and Burkina Faso, and in sub-nationally representative samples of women aged 15–49 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Lagos, Nigeria. We examine prevalence and distribution of household income loss, food insecurity, and access to health care during the COVID-19 lockdowns across residence and pre-pandemic wealth categories. We then regress pre-pandemic individual and household sociodemographic characteristics on the three outcomes. Results In three out of four samples, over 90% of women reported partial or complete loss of household income since the beginning of the coronavirus restrictions. Prevalence of food insecurity ranged from 17.0% (95% CI 13.6–20.9) to 39.8% (95% CI 36.0–43.7), and the majority of women in food insecure households reported increases in food insecurity during the COVID-19 restriction period. In contrast, we did not find significant barriers to accessing health care during COVID restrictions. Between 78·3% and 94·0% of women who needed health care were able successfully access it. When we examined pre-pandemic sociodemographic correlates of the outcomes, we found that the income shock of COVID-19 was substantial and distributed similarly across wealth groups, but food insecurity was concentrated among poorer households. Contrary to a-priori expectations, we find little evidence of women experiencing barriers to health care, but there is significant need for food support.

Previous studies show that there are cultural factors associated with economic outcomes such as employment and labor force participation and non-economic outcomes such as education and fertility. Using immigration as a semi-natural experiment and using the Current Population Survey (1994-2020), we reexamine the link between labor force outcomes, fertility, and education of immigrants and their home country respective characteristics. We documented that an additional year of schooling in the home country is associated with a 0.45 and 0.24 years increase in education of first and second generation females, respectively. Moreover, a 1 percent higher female labor force participation in the home country is associated with a 0.26 and 0.16 percent increase in labor force participation of first and second generation females, respectively. Since the female labor force participation, education, and fertility are considered to contain cultural components, we interpret the results as intergenerational transmission of culture. However, the links are limited for second generations suggesting some cultural integration and acculturation to the new environment. We discuss the policy implications of the results.

For the last twenty years, scholarly research has relied primarily on food deserts as a way to frame geographic disparities in access to healthy foods. The results of this research have been empirically mixed, and the term itself has been critiqued as apolitical. Using the alternative framing of retailer redlining, I analyze the rapid growth of dollar stores in twenty-seven metropolitan areas in the United States. Locations for these stores increased by 62 percent nationally during this time period, an expansion that was consistent in all regions of the country. Using descriptive statistics, cross-sectional, and first-difference models, I analyze how neighborhoods’ racial makeup was associated with changes in dollar store proximity, controlling for household income, population, and overall retailer density. This analysis shows that proximity to dollar stores is highly associated with neighborhoods of color even when controlling for other factors. This result highlights how the growth of dollar stores and similar spaces designed for economically precarious households both reflect and, potentially, contribute to long histories of racial exclusion.

This dissertation contains three essays in labor economics with a focus on economic and institutional differences in regional labor markets. It separately explores the causes and consequences of two major trends in the United States - the declining geographic concentration of immigrant location choices and the increasing prevalence of state-level occupational licensing requirements. Chapter one shows that the geographic concentration of the foreign-born population in the United States fell sharply between 1980 and 2010 as immigrants were increasingly drawn to areas with historically low migrant inflows. This trend was driven primarily by the changing location choices of new immigrant cohorts, though secondary migration has played a minor role as well. An analysis of the determinants of location choice across four decades suggests that immigrants remain highly responsive to local labor market conditions, but the traditionally strong pull of ethnic enclaves has diminished over time. Chapter two describes the construction of a novel dataset that compiles over one hundred years of occupational licensing, certification, and registration requirements in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. The data are assembled through a comprehensive analysis of numerous primary and secondary sources and currently identify major state and federal policy changes for 250 unique occupation categories. It is the first occupational licensing database to link each policy to both current statutes or administrative regulations, as well as to historical legislation covering the entire twentieth century. A comprehensive analysis of state session laws, in particular, allows me to observe the exact text of all legislative acts enacting, amending, or replacing statutes that reference specific occupations. Using the content of these laws, I record the enactment and effective dates of regulatory changes and several variables that characterize the type of regulation that was adopted. Relative to existing sources, my data offer a significantly longer time series, the ability to observe superseded legislation, and a more complete coding of legal prohibitions that differentiates between practice and title restrictions. Chapter three studies the short- and long-run impact of occupational licensing on labor market outcomes in the United States using the data described in chapter two. I implement an event study design that exploits within-occupation variation in the timing of licensing statutes across states to trace out the dynamic response of earnings and employment to policy changes. I find consistent evidence across several independent employer and household surveys that the typical licensing statute adopted during the past half-century increased worker earnings, but had null or weakly positive effects on employment. Twenty-five years after licensing statutes were adopted, cumulative wage growth in treated state-occupation cells exceeded that of untreated controls by 4 to 7%. Over the same time period, my results rule out an average disemployment effect greater than -5%. The data show much larger decreases in employment, however, among occupations that have little potential to cause serious harm. In cases where the consumer protection rationale for licensing is more plausible, I find simultaneous increases in both earnings and employment following the adoption of licensing requirements.

This paper studies the cultural determinants and consequences of mass emigration from Scandinavia to North America in the 19th century. I test the hypothesis that people with collectivist traits tended to stay rather than emigrate because they faced higher costs of leaving familiar social networks behind. Exploiting near-complete data on 1.5 million emigrants and 10 million stayers in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, I find that children who grew up in households that practiced stronger collectivist norms were less likely to emigrate later in life. I proceed to document that this type of selective emigration generated lasting cultural change in migrant-sending locations. Locations that experienced larger outflows of particularly selected individuals are thus more collectivist today. The implications of these findings are potentially wide-reaching as collectivism and its counterpart, individualism, have been linked to central societal processes such as cooperation, the diffusion of ideas, and innovation.

Background: A growing proportion of cancer survivors experience financial toxicity. However, the psychological burden of cancer costs and associated mental health outcomes require further investigation. We assessed prevalence and predictors of self-reported financial worry and mental health outcomes among cancer survivors. Patients and methods: Data from the 2013–2018 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for adults reporting a cancer diagnosis were used. Multivariable ordinal logistic regressions defined adjusted odds ratios (AORs) of reporting financial worry by relevant sociodemographic variables, and sample weight-adjusted prevalence of financial worry was estimated. The association between financial worry and psychological distress, as defined by the six-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale was also assessed. Results: Among 13,361 survey participants (median age 67; 60.0% female), 9567 (71.6%) self-reported financial worry, including worries regarding costs of paying for children’s college education (62.7%), maintaining one’s standard of living (59.7%), and medical costs due to illness or accident (58.3%). Female sex, younger age, and Asian American race were associated with increased odds of financial worry (P < 0.05 for all). Of 13,218 participants with complete responses to K6 questions, 701 (5.3%) met the threshold for severe psychological distress. Participants endorsing financial worry were more likely to have psychological distress (6.6 vs. 1.2%, AOR 2.89, 95% CI 2.03–4.13, P< 0.001) with each additional worry conferring 23.9% increased likelihood of psychological distress. Conclusions: A majority of cancer survivors reported financial worry, which was associated with greater odds of reporting psychological distress. Policies and guidelines are needed to identify and mitigate financial worries and psychologic distress among patients with cancer, with the goal of improving psychological well-being and overall cancer survivorship care.

This paper evaluates a natural experiment which occurred in Ohio in 2005 when the state amended the tax system. The change sets up a dramatic corporate tax cut of 8.3 percentage points (p.p.) over the period 2006-2010 corresponding to a 96.9% reduction in the tax. Policymakers also reduced the personal income tax over the same period by 0.95 percentage point (p.p.). I investigate the incidence of the reform on wages in general and corporate wages in the short-run. To do so, I use a synthetic control method along with an event study design applied to individual records of the Current Population Survey (CPS). The results in this paper suggest that the corporate tax cut may have resulted in a one-time payment in corporate wages at the onset of the reform.

When Bolivian forces engaged the Paraguay Army in 1932 to control the desolate Chaco Boreal they began what would be a monumental transformative project. More than a quarter of a million men served on the Bolivian side, or almost 10 per cent of the total population. Of those, more than 50,000 perished and over 20,000 surrendered. Bolivian prisoners laboured in Paraguay as servants, construction workers, and farm hands; this article aims to detail aspects of who these prisoners were and what they did in captivity.

Background and Objectives: To examine racial/ethnic, nativity, and gender differences in the benefits of educational attainment on cognitive health life expectancies among older adults in the United States. Research Design and Methods: We used data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998–2014) to estimate Sullivanbased life tables of cognitively healthy, cognitively impaired/no dementia, and dementia life expectancies by gender for older White, Black, U.S.-born Hispanic, and foreign-born Hispanic adults with less than high school, high school, and some college or more. Results: White respondents lived a greater percentage of their remaining lives cognitively healthy than their minority Black or Hispanic counterparts, regardless of level of education. Among respondents with some college or more, versus less than high school, Black and U.S.-born Hispanic women exhibited the greatest increase (both 37 percentage points higher) in the proportion of total life expectancy spent cognitively healthy; whereas White women had the smallest increase (17 percentage points higher). For men, the difference between respondents with some college or more, versus less than high school, was greatest for Black men (35 percentage points higher) and was lowest for U.S.-born Hispanic men (21 percentage points higher). Discussion and Implications: Our results provide evidence that the benefits of education on cognitive health life expectancies are largest for Black men and women and U.S.-born Hispanic women. The combination of extended longevity and rising prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease points to the need for understanding why certain individuals spend an extended period of their lives with poor cognitive health.

A recent Urban Institute analysis projected that four major policies in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) will reduce the number of people in poverty in 2021 from 44 million to 28 million, shrinking the overall poverty rate from 13.7 percent to 8.7 percent (Wheaton et al. 2021). 1 Of the 16.4 million people lifted out of poverty by four policies in the ARP, the recovery rebates ($1,400 payments to most people) alone would keep 11.4 million people out poverty. 2 With no clear end to the economic hardship caused by the pandemic, some senators have begun calling for additional payments. 3 These could further reduce poverty for millions. Depending on whether additional $1,400 payments are extended to all people in the US or only to citizens, we project that another payment could further reduce 2021 poverty to between 6.4 and 6.6 percent. Two such payments could reduce poverty to between 4.9 and 5.2 percent. Among Black people, an additional payment could reduce poverty from 10.5 percent to between 7.7 and 7.8 percent, and a second payment could further reduce poverty to between 5.8 and 6.0 percent. Hispanic people could see poverty drop from 13.3 percent to between 9.0 and 9.9 percent with one additional payment and to between 6.3 and 7.6 percent with two additional payments.

This paper examines the impact of changes in housing affordability on regional entrepreneurship. Two-way fixed-effects estimates suggest an increase in the level of house prices in a commuting zone results in a decline in establishment openings as a share of existing establishments—consistent with a crowding-out effect. In contrast, an increase in the growth rate of house prices results in a small (although not always statistically significant) increase in establishment openings—consistent with a positive wealth effect from capital gains. To address endogeneity concerns, the authors adopt two alternative instruments for commuting zone house-price growth: a measure of local real estate lending and a geography-based measure of the elasticity of local housing supply. They extend the analysis using restricted-use establishment-level microdata from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the state of Colorado. Results from the QCEW data are consistent with those from the commuting zone sample.

Occupational disease is an epidemic that is largely ‘hidden in plain sight.’ At the same time, work-related disease is preventable. Since these illnesses arise or are made worse by hazardous workplace conditions, elimination or reduction of those hazards eliminates or reduces disease. More than 30 years ago, a report by Drs. Landrigan and Markowitz found that more than 5,000 NYS workers died from an occupational disease and at least 35,000 more developed a workrelated illness each year. This new report shows that occupational disease remains a major public health problem in New York State, with little progress made since 1987. Annually, over seven thousand New Yorkers lose their lives due to preventable exposure to workplace hazards, and at any given time, over two million New Yorkers suffer from a non-fatal work-related disease. Protecting workers from these hazards requires a multi-faceted approach, addressing disease recognition, treatment and prevention, and must involve both governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations and advocates.

This paper uses the aftermath of the great Tambora eruption in 1815 as a natural experiment to explore the long term effects of a nutritional shock during prenatal development. The volcanic explosion of Tambora formed substantial ash columns which hampered sun light, cooled down the surface temperature, reduced the length of the growing season, and led to a severe harvest failure during summer and winter of 1816 in Europe and northeastern states of America. US decennial censuses 1850-1880 provide evidence that cohorts in utero during the climate anomaly revealed lower literacy rates, lower labor force participation rates, fewer number of own children, and higher female-male ratio. The results are confirmed among the same cohorts in England, Canada, and Norway. 1851-1881 Decennial censuses of each country indicate negative effects of exposure during prenatal development on labor market participation rates in adulthood.

The core challenge our proposal seeks to address is how to ensure that every American family and child has access to high-quality, affordable early childhood care and education (ECE) services in a critical period of human development, breaking a shortage of investment in young children. America’s status quo asks the most of parents when they have the least. The public invests only about $1,500 per child annually in care and education in children’s first 5 years of life, when parents have the least earning and borrowing power, and then invests $12,800 per child annually for the next 13 years, when parents have more. Under this proposal, every family can choose to access affordable ECE services at qualified, high-quality center-, home-, and school-based providers using either a slot that providers have been contracted to provide or a scholarship. Families in poverty can choose Early Head Start and Head Start with the option of full-time, full-year services. Total family financial payments are capped and depend on family income-to-poverty ratio. The combination of family and public payments to providers will adjust to be sufficient to cover the local costs of efficiently producing high-quality care and services. Competition focuses in three domains: procurement competitions for local service contracts that reveal information about local production costs, competition between providers about how best to use a localized sufficient care-labor budget to attract, develop, motivate, and retain care talent, and competition between providers to serve local families better.