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This paper evaluates the use of commuting zones as a local labour market definition. We revisit the seminal paper by Tolbert and Sizer and demonstrate the sensitivity of definitions to two features of the methodology: a cluster dissimilarity cut-off, or the count of clusters, and uncertainty in the input data. We show how these features impact empirical estimates using a standard application of commuting zones and an example from related literature. We conclude with advice to researchers on how to demonstrate the robustness of empirical findings to uncertainty in the definition of commuting zones.

This paper investigates the effect of US-China trade liberalization on the employment outcomes of workers in construction industries. Using individual-level data from the US decennial census, American Community Survey, and Current Population Survey data (over 70 million observations) and applying a difference-indifference methodology that compares the outcomes of individuals in high versus low exposure to tariff reductions after the reform to before, we find negative and significant effects of trade liberalization for employment in construction industries. The effects hold for both extensive and intensive margins, across a wide range of specifications, and various outcomes. A heterogeneity analysis reveals higher effects among males and non-Hispanic whites. The results call for compensatory policies for workers in industries that are negatively affected by trade policy changes.

Recessions in the United States are usually associated with a larger employment drop for men than for women. But during the COVID-19 recession, employment losses were larger for women. Figure 1 shows the employment-to-population ratio for men and women during the last four business cycles. The drop in the ratio was higher for men than for women in each previous cycle, but not in the pandemic recession. There are demand-side and supply-side reasons why the pattern of employment changes during recessions is different for men and women, and these patterns have not been the same during the pandemic as in previous recessions. On the demand side, the asymmetry is partly explained by gender differences in the occupation distribution, with men primarily employed in production occupations and women concentrated in service occupations, which tend to be less cyclical (Albanesi and Sahin 2018; Olsson 2019). During the pandemic, however, there has been a sizable drop in the demand for services as a result of both the mitigation measures enacted to contain the pandemic and consumers' response to the risk of infection (Chetty et al. 2020). Given the concentration of women in service occupations, they have been disproportionately hit by the corresponding employment losses. On the supply side, married women have, in the past, tended to increase their attachment to the labor force during economic downturns relative to expansions as a form of household insurance that reduces the impact of recessions (Ellieroth 2019). Before the pandemic, the lower cyclicality of women’s employment led to a reduction in the cyclical volatility of aggregate employment as the share of women in the workforce increased from the 1970s onward (Albanesi 2019). During the pandemic, limited availability of in-person childcare and schooling options led many parents—and women in particular—to exit the labor force.

Natural disasters are growing in frequency globally. Understanding how vulnerable populations respond to these disasters is essential for effective policy response. This paper explores the short-and long-run consequences of the 1906 San Francisco Fire, one of the largest urban fires in American history. Using linked Census records, I follow residents of San Francisco and their children from 1900 to 1940. Historical records suggest that exoge-nous factors such as wind and the availability of water determined where the fire stopped. I implement a spatial regression discontinuity design across the boundary of the razed area to identify the effect of the fire on those who lost their home to it. I find that in the short run, the fire displaced affected residents, forced them into lower paying occupations and out of entrepreneurship. Experiencing the disaster disrupted children's school attendance and led to an average loss of six months of education. In the long run, victims were able to partially recover from the negative economic shock, with the exception of a persistent reduction in entrepreneurship.

Wage inequality does not fully capture differences in job quality. Jobs also differ along other key dimensions, including the prevalence of labor rights violations. We construct novel measures of labor violation rates using data from federal agencies. Within local industries over time, a 10% increase in the average wage is associated with a 0.15% decrease in the number of violations per employee and a 4% decrease in fines per dollar of pay. Reduced labor market concentration and increased union coverage rate are also associated with reductions in labor violations. Overall, labor violations are regressive: they increase inequality in job quality

We study the implications of a growth model including social capital and habit formation concerning the recovery of economies that suffer from an exogenous destruction in their capital stock. Habits exhibit very low persistence and depend only on last period's consumption as suggested by empirical evidence. In addition to physical capital, agents invest in social capital which generates both market (production) and non-market (utility) returns. We study an infinite horizon model and compare its implications to a model with habit formation but without social capital. Our framework is more efficient in generating dynamic patterns that replicate the behavior of the main economic variables during the reconstruction period. High investment in social capital at the beginning of the transition is a key element of our results.

Shortages in healthcare labor markets were a major concern voiced by critics of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I find the 2014 ACA Medicaid expansions increased the average workweek by 30 min for registered nurses (RNs) and 50 min for licensed practical nurses (LPNs), driven by an increase in full-time work. RNs and LPNs were 3 and 5 percentage points more likely to work full-time, respectively, due to the Medicaid expansions. There is little evidence of increased nurse employment on the extensive margin.

Does contact across social groups influence sociopolitical behavior? This question is among the most studied in the social sciences with deep implications for the harmony of diverse societies. Yet, despite a voluminous body of scholarship, evidence around this question is limited to cross-sectional surveys that only measure short-term consequences of contact or to panel surveys with small samples covering short time periods. Using advances in machine learning that enable large-scale linkages across datasets, we examine the long-term determinants of sociopolitical behavior through an unprecedented individual-level analysis linking contemporary political records to the 1940 U.S. Census. These linked data allow us to measure the exact residential context of nearly every person in the United States in 1940 and, for men, connect this with the political behavior of those still alive over 70 years later. We find that, among white Americans, early-life exposure to black neighbors predicts Democratic partisanship over 70 years later.

Latino children disproportionately receive their health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP. Together, these programs provide coverage for more than one-third (37.6 percent) of all children, but more than half (52.1 percent) of Latino children. Adopting Medicaid and CHIP policies that remove barriers to participation and reduce gaps in coverage would narrow inequities in health coverage and access for Latino children. 12-month continuous coverage advances health equity by promoting continuity of treatment for low-income children who experience disproportionate rates of health disparities. Additionally, research shows that continuous eligibility policies significantly improve the continuity of children’s enrollment in Medicaid and are costeffective. Without policies like 12-month continuous eligibility in place, higher COVID-19 case rates and lower vaccination rates could lead to even longer-term inequities in access to care.

We develop a spatial model of economic growth to study the effect of changes in the technological landscape on the spatial distribution of economic activity. We use this framework to study the evolution of the U.S. economic geography over the twentieth century. In the model, innovation via frictional idea diffusion makes cities trajectories sensitive to “technological waves,” defined as long-term shifts in the importance of different knowledge fields. We calibrate the model using a new dataset of historical geolocated patents, and find that cities differential exposure to technological waves explains between 15% and 20% of the variation in local population growth over the twentieth century. Counterfactual experiments suggest large and heterogeneous geographical effects of future technological scenarios.

Despite many years of good work around benefits counseling, work incentives, employment supports, employer education efforts, and nondiscrimination laws, the employment rate among youth with disabilities remains low. A vital missing piece of our disability employment policy is a focus on “employment empowerment.” Employment empowerment instruction gives individuals with disabilities the attitudes and knowledge needed to address their basic fears and enter the competitive labor market. Competitive employment success requires self-confident job seekers who can impress potential employers with their ambition and ability to get the job done. However, the disability experience often dampens the development of these traits. This proposal suggests adopting a more aggressive employment empowerment approach throughout the disability employment policy arena; calls for federal cross-agency working groups to promote employment empowerment; and offers piloted sample materials whose content helps build the employment self-confidence, ambition, focus, and workplace knowledge necessary for youth with disabilities to embrace and pursue their competitive employment potential. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. This proposal is dedicated to building the will by showing the way.

This study uses nationally representative data for the United States from the Basic Monthly Current Population Survey to document how teachers’ hours of work have changed in 2020 and 2021 relative to typical labor supply levels and to the hours worked by other college-educated professional workers. Controlling for demographics, teachers’ hours decreased early in the pandemic, but throughout the 2020–2021 school year teachers have been working more than usual. The increase is slightly more pronounced for veteran teachers and for females. The findings emphasize the increased demands of the teaching profession during the global pandemic.

Objectives: There is a growing body of macro-level studies examining hate crime. These studies however largely focus on ethnoracial hate crime, leading to a relative dearth of research investigating the etiology of anti-Jewish hate crime. The current study seeks to fill this gap by conducting a community-level analysis of anti-Jewish hate crime in New York City. Methods: Using data from the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, the current study employs a series of negative binomial regressions to investigate the impact of defended neighborhoods, social disorganization, and strain variables on anti-Jewish hate crime. Results: The results show that defended neighborhoods consistently predict higher levels of anti-Jewish hate crime in White, Black, and non-White neighborhoods even when accounting for social disorganization and strain variables. Results also demonstrate that anti-Jewish crime occurs in communities that are more socially organized and with better economic conditions. Conclusions: This study’s findings reveal Jewish victims to be a catchall target when a minority group increasingly moves into a majority area. These defended neighborhoods, and other findings have intriguing implications for both criminology’s social disorganization theory and the police and others charged with combatting bias crimes.

Purpose The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effects of early Medicaid expansions on young adults, who also benefitted from a private dependent coverage expansion. Methods We used the American Community Survey 2008–2013 to study three early expansion states—California, Connecticut, and Minnesota—using difference-in-differences. Control states are weighted combinations of other states and are similar to expansion states in the prepolicy periods. We analyze young adults and subgroups of women and men. Results Early Medicaid reduced uninsurance and improved public coverage among low- and moderate-income young adults beyond the private dependent coverage expansion, but results differed across states. California, which targeted up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), reduced uninsurance 1.3 percentage points (4.2% relative to mean) and increased public insurance by 1.4 percentage points (14.0%). Connecticut, which targeted up to 56 percent of FPL, had no change to uninsurance but a 5.4 percentage point (42.5%) increase in public coverage. Minnesota's programs (up to 75 and 250 percent of FPL) produced a 4.2 percentage point (21.9%) decline in uninsurance for their lowest income group, but no measurable changes for their moderate-income group. Young men benefitted more than women. Their uninsurance declined as much as 6.0 percentage points (25.0%, in Minnesota) and their public coverage increased up to 9.1 percentage points (61.5%, in Connecticut). Conclusions Medicaid expansion benefits young adults, even those with moderate incomes, and even following a private dependent expansion. Results were larger and concentrated among young men, who historically had little engagement with the program.

Formal institutions, such as government and markets, require an underpinning of more informal relationships that enable them to function. Without a certain degree of social trust, without norms of appropriate vs. inappropriate behavior, without strong institutions that uphold unifying and transcendent values, neither democracy nor the economy will flourish. Social capital, in short, is the glue that makes a society work. But it is not the panacea that some suggest. It is only in concert with good government, and a more inclusive prosperity, that it can address what ails America. Social capital is a somewhat amorphous and academic term, but the literature suggests that the decline in trust in others, in strong relationships, and in community ties is one reason that Trump was elected, one reason that our health and longevity have been deteriorating, and one reason that economic growth has slowed. What has gone wrong? The formation of character and the creation of prosocial norms depend on how families raise their children, how schools educate them, and how local institutions work to build a sense of community. All three of these institutions are now faltering. Rebuilding the kind of social trust and norms that make for a strong society is extremely difficult. Trust, norms, and institutions are easier to destroy than to revive. I end by suggesting a few ways in which we might create more social capital: universal national service, an enhanced subsidy for charitable giving, and additional resources and flexibility for local communities so that they can innovate and rebuild in ways that fit their own values and circumstances. Leadership that is at once moral and effective at every level from the neighborhood to the White House will be critical to that revival.

This dissertation examines the effects of US immigration policy on both immigrants themselves and the US economy and society more broadly. The past two decades were a period of large swings in immigration policy, from which immigrants are allowed to cross the border, how they access public programs, health care, and education once in the US, and whether those without authorization to live in the country are forced to leave. This work adds to our understanding of the consequences of these changes, both intended and unintended. In addition to providing guidance as to the possible effects future swings in immigration policy, understanding the past effects of policy changes affecting immigrants is a useful tool to gain insight on the costs of barriers to health care and education more broadly. Chapter 1, joint work with Giovanni Peri, considers the effect of immigration enforcement on local crime and police efficiency in the US. Reducing crime by deporting criminals is a key justification for intensified deportations, particularly under the Trump Administration; however, there are also concerns that fear of deportation reduces community policing in immigrant communities and misallocates police resources. Providing empirical evidence for or against the validity of these claims is key to making informed policy decisions. Our identification relies increases in the deportation rate driven by the introduction of the Secure CCommuix nities (SC) program, an immigration enforcement program based on local-federal cooperation which was rolled out across counties between 2008 and 2013. We instrument for the deportation rate by interacting the introduction of SC with the local presence of likely undocumented in 2005, prior to the introduction of SC, and document a surge in local deportation rates under SC, concentrated among counties with a large undocumented population. We find that SC-driven increases in deportation rates did not reduce crime rates for violent offenses or property offenses. We do not find evidence that SC increased either police effectiveness in solving crimes or local police resources. Finally, we do not find effects of deportations on the local employment of unskilled citizens or on local firm creation. Chapter 2 turns to the unintended effects of immigration enforcement and examine the impact of deportations on health care access for immigrants themselves. I combine hospital inpatient discharge records from Florida and Arizona with information on immigration enforcement under the Secure Communities (SC) program to examine the consequences of immigration enforcement for the use of health care services and admissions for preventable diagnoses. This is a particularly important question given the high costs of health care in the US: if fear deters immigrants from receiving regular outpatient and preventive care, they may fall back on the emergency room when minor ailments get more serious, thus using a much higher cost service. While prior literature finds significant impacts of immigration enforcement on health outcomes, this paper does not find convincing causal x evidence that an increase in immigration enforcement affected the prevalence of ambulatory-sensitive conditions or total inpatient admissions. It may be the case that the group affected by SC was already delaying health care, avoiding hospitals, and finding other avenues of care, and enforcement did not change behaviors or outcomes further. Differential trends in health by ethnicity, combined with confounding factors such as the Great Recession that occurred simultaneously with increases in immigration enforcement, suggest caution in extrapolating meaningful effects from the impact of immigration policies on health outcomes. Chapter 3, joint work with Michel Grosz, examines the impact of a reduction in college tuition targeted at undocumented immigrants in Colorado. We study the effects of this effective decrease in college tuition on college application and enrollment behavior. Specifically, we use student-level data to analyze a Colorado law that granted in-state tuition to certain undocumented students. We find an increase in the credit hours and persistence of newly enrolled and likely undocumented students. Leveraging application-level data, we show that the policy induced more students to enroll in college due to an increase in applications, rather than an increase in the acceptance rate or the enrollment rate. We do not find evidence of changes in the persistence or credit hours of continuing students.

The young adulthood years are demographically dense. Dr. Ronald Rindfuss made this claim when he was Population Association of America (PAA) president in 1991 (Rindfuss 1991), and this conclusion holds today. I offer both an update of his work by including Millennials and a new view on young adulthood by focusing on an increasingly common experience: cohabitation. I believe we need to move away from our marriage-centric lens of young adulthood and embrace the complexity that cohabitation offers. The cohabitation boom is continuing with no evidence of a slowdown. Young adults are experiencing complex relationship biographies, and social science research is struggling to keep pace. Increasingly, there is a decoupling of cohabitation and marriage, suggesting new ways of framing our understanding of relationships in young adulthood. As a field, we can do better to ensure that our theories, methods, and data collections better reflect the new relationship reality faced by young adults.

This study aims to evaluate whether direct democracy campaign contact can stimulate peripheral voter usage of early voting options, thereby helping to equalize rates of electoral participation between core and peripheral voter groups. Using voter survey data from the 2016 US presidential election in Escambia County, Florida, the analysis shows that while core voters tend to use early voting options, peripheral voters contacted by a direct democracy campaign can be mobilized into voting absentee. This result suggests that direct democracy reforms, and the ballot measure campaigns accompanying them, can help bring about a more representative electorate.

Police violence is a pressing public health problem. To gauge the illness associations of police killings–the most severe form of police brutality, we compile a unique multilevel dataset that nests individual-level health data from the 2009–2013 New York City Community Health Survey (nij = 39,267) within neighbourhood-level data from 2003 to 2012 EpiQuery Vital Statistics (nj = 34). Using weighted hierarchical generalized linear models, we assess main and gendered associations between neighbourhood exposures to lethal policing and five illnesses. Holding all else constant, living in lethally surveilled areas is linked to a greater risk of high blood pressure and obesity for all neighbourhood residents and to a greater risk of obesity for women. Furthermore, illness risks are also gendered: Women face a 30–54 percent greater risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity compared to men. Lethal police brutality is an important neighbourhood risk factor for illness and, especially, for women’s health.