During the late nineteenth century, half of all municipalities installed lead water pipes, exposing millions of people to harmful levels of lead consumption. This paper explores the long-term, and intergenerational, effects of waterborne lead exposure on men's labor market outcomes using linked samples drawn from the full count censuses. For identification, we leverage variation in lead pipe adoption across cities and differences in the chemical properties of a town's water supply, which interact to influence the extent of lead leaching. Results show adult men with higher levels of waterborne lead exposure as children have lower incomes , worse occupations, and lower levels of completed education compared to adult men who had lower levels of waterborne lead exposure as children. Men who are exposed to higher levels of waterborne lead have a significantly decreased probability of improving their income rank relative to their fathers, which is consistent with lead exposure behaving like a negative place-based shock that constrains upward mobility.

We document large differences among regions of the United States in the trends of the black/white earnings gap among full-time workers from 1976 to 2017. Outside the South, the earnings of black workers grew more slowly than those of non-Hispanic white workers. These relative decreases were much larger for women than for men. However, in the South, the racial earnings gap shrank for men, and changed little for women. Thus, we find a substantial convergence across regions in the black/white earnings gap. The most important explanations of the racial earnings gaps are persistent racial differences in educational attainment and persistent occupational segregation. However, differences in observables leave much of the racial earnings gaps unexplained. The regional convergence in the racial earnings gap is evident in both explained and unexplained gaps for both women and men.

Data visualization is a powerful tool to communicate information clearly and efficiently and is widely used in data analysis to support data-driven decision making. However, selecting a good visualization (i.e., view) that is both usable and useful is not a trivial task because the search space of visualization configurations (e.g., variables to visualize, data transformations, visual encodings) is prohibitively large. In order to aid the user, a variety of utility functions have been proposed to estimate the utility of the views, so as to provide view recommendations, such as usability and usefulness. Different utility functions assess different aspects of a view's utility and can also be combined to form multi-objective utility functions. Traditional view recommendation systems typically do not consider user preferences of utility functions or user expectations of view values, leading to further suboptimal recommendation. A predefined utility function is not likely to fit all users' needs at all times. User expectation also plays a role in the utility of a view. For example, if a peculiar pattern is expected by the user, then they will not find it very interesting in a recommended view. In order to support effective view recommendation for a given analysis, in this thesis, we propose a new paradigm, called Interactive View Recommendation (IVR), in which the system iteratively interacts with the user to elicit user preference information and expectations to formulate the most suitable utility function. IVR has two main objectives: high recommendation quality and low user interaction effort. However, these two objectives are usually in conflict, making the IVR problem even more challenging than traditional view recommendations. As a proof-of-concept, we propose ViewSeeker, an active learning-based IVR framework and prototype system, which intelligently selects informative questions for user feedback to achieve a satisfactory recommendation quality while minimizing user interaction effort. ViewSeeker implements three main functionalities: (1) utility function preference learning, (2) user expectation learning, and (3) external knowledge base utilization. Simulated and real user studies were conducted to evaluate ViewSeeker's effectiveness in leveraging interactive user feedback for personalized view recommendation, showing that with acceptable user effort, ViewSeeker can outperform current non-IVR recommenders.

Background: In the United States, the tuberculosis (TB) disease burden and associated factors vary substantially across states. While public health agencies must choose how to deploy resources to combat TB and latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), state-level modeling analyses to inform policy decisions have not been widely available. Methods: We developed a mathematical model of TB epidemiology linked to a web-based user interface — Tabby2. The model is calibrated to epidemiological and demographic data for the United States, each U.S. state, and the District of Columbia. Users can simulate pre-defined scenarios describing approaches to TB prevention and treatment or create their own intervention scenarios. Location-specific results for epidemiological outcomes, service utilization, costs, and cost-effectiveness are reported as downloadable tables and customizable visualizations. To demonstrate the tool’s functionality, we projected trends in TB outcomes without additional intervention for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We further undertook a case study of expanded treatment of LTBI among non-U.S.–born individuals in Massachusetts, covering 10% of the target population annually over 2025-2029. Results: Between 2022 and 2050, TB incidence rates were projected to decline in all states and the District of Columbia. Incidence projections for the year 2050 ranged from 0.03 to 3.8 cases (median 0.95) per 100,000 persons. By 2050, we project that majority (> 50%) of TB will be diagnosed among non-U.S.–born persons in 46 states and the District of Columbia; per state percentages range from 17.4% to 96.7% (median 83.0%). In Massachusetts, expanded testing and treatment for LTBI in this population was projected to reduce cumulative TB cases between 2025 and 2050 by 6.3% and TB-related deaths by 8.4%, relative to base case projections. This intervention had an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $180,951 (2020 USD) per quality-adjusted life year gained from the societal perspective. Conclusions: Tabby2 allows users to estimate the costs, impact, and cost-effectiveness of different TB prevention approaches for multiple geographic areas in the United States. Expanded testing and treatment for LTBI could accelerate declines in TB incidence in the United States, as demonstrated in the Massachusetts case study.

Background Residential mobility after spinal cord injury (SCI) has not been extensively examined despite a growing interest in investigating the relationship between neighborhood exposures and community living outcomes. Objectives This study explores residential mobility patterns, the annual move rate, and reasons for moving among a community-living sample of adults with SCI. Methods A survey was conducted with 690 people at six SCI Model Systems centers in the United States between July 2017 and October 2020. The outcomes included move status in the past 12 months, move distance, and the primary reason for moving. A sample from the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year pooled estimates was obtained for comparative analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the distributions of the outcomes and differences between the samples. Results The annual move rate for adults with SCI was 16.4%, and most moves were within the same county (56.6%). Recent movers were more likely to be young adults, be newly injured, and have low socioeconomic status. Housing quality, accessibility, and family were more frequently reported motivations for moving compared to employment. Young adults more commonly moved for family and accessibility, whereas middle-aged adults more commonly moved for housing quality. No notable difference was observed in the annual move rate between the SCI and the general population samples. Conclusion These findings suggest an age-related pattern of residential relocation after SCI, which may be indicative an extended search for optimal living conditions that meet the housing and accessibility needs of this population.

Testing the Racial Context Hypothesis (Read and Emerson 2005), we examine the relationship between racial context of origin and three health behaviors (smoking, drinking, and physical activity) among Black immigrants in the USA. We conduct multinomial logistic regression analyses using data from the 2000–2018 National Health Interview Survey (N = 248,401) to determine if racial context of origin is a mechanism of health differential between Black immigrants and US-born Black Americans. Supporting the Racial Context Hypothesis, we find that Black immigrants from racially mixed (Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, South America) and majority-Black contexts (Africa) are significantly less likely to be current or former smokers and drinkers than US-born Black Americans. Black immigrants from majority-white (Europe) contexts, on the other hand, look more similar to US-born Black Americans — again supporting the premise that racial context of origin is consequential for health. After controlling for a host of covariates, Black immigrants do not significantly differ from US-born Black Americans in exercise status. Together, these findings suggest that the impacts of racism and white supremacy have lasting effects on people of color, where Black immigrants from majority-white contexts exhibit worse health behaviors than their counterparts from majority-Black and racially mixed regions.

Private equity–backed staffing companies in anesthesia and emergency medicine, as well as those owned by publicly traded companies, gained notoriety for driving surprise billing—a practice where patients unexpectedly treated by an out-of-network provider can be billed for the difference between the provider's charge and what their insurer pays. Yet, little is known about the evolution of private equity and publicly traded company investment in these specialties. In this study, we construct a novel dataset identifying the ownership structure of anesthesia and emergency medicine physician groups to document trends in consolidation and the growing role of private equity and publicly traded companies. From 2009 to 2019, we found substantial increases in local market concentration in each specialty and that physician groups owned by private equity or publicly traded companies grew from 3.2% and 8.6% of the national anesthesia and emergency medicine markets, respectively, to 18.8% and 22.0%.

In a substantive democracy, policies reflect citizen preferences. For a highly heterogenous country like the United States, state policies play an even crucial role in representing the preferences of state publics. Despite research showing state policies to be highly responsive to mass policy preferences, a “democratic deficit” exists in the American states where policies are only congruent with majority opinion half the time. To examine whether the democratic deficit has an effect on state publics, I analyze the impact of state abortion restriction and gun control policies on abortion conservatism and preference for stricter gun control, using public opinion data between 1974 and 2020. In general, the majority of abortion restriction and gun control policies have little impact on policy-specific preferences. Furthermore, I find that abortion restriction policies tend to reinforce Republican support in gubernatorial and state legislative elections, while Democratic gains due to gun control policies are attenuated and less consistent. In my third dissertation chapter, I examine the differential impact of Medicaid expansion on the Democratic vote share between high and low income ZIP codes in presidential and down- ballot elections from 2008 to 2020. Overall, I find the most meaningful impact on the net Democratic gain in gubernatorial elections due to Medicaid expansion among voters in low income ZIP codes than those in high income ZIP codes. The findings contribute to existing research on the positive feedback effects of the ACA as well as policy accountability among different segments of the American electorate.

Background This study examined racial/ethnic and educational disparities in US synthetic opioid overdose mortality East and West of the Mississippi River. Methods Using restricted-access 2018–2021 mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and population estimates from the American Community Survey, age-standardized rate ratios (SRRs) and 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs) were used to compare rates of synthetic opioid mortality by race/ethnicity and educational attainment level in the regions East and West of the Mississippi River. Results Racial/ethnic disparities in synthetic opioid mortality rates, relative to the Non-Hispanic (NH) White population, were observed in the NH Black (SRR, 1.5 [95% CI, 1.5–1.6]) and NH American Indian/Alaska Native (SRR, 2.1 [95% CI, 1.9–2.2]) populations in the West, and the Puerto Rican (SRR, 1.3 [95% CI, 1.3–1.3]) and NH American Indian/Alaska Native (SRR, 1.5 [95% CI, 1.4–1.6]) populations in the East. Relative to those with a Bachelor’s degree or higher: in the West, the synthetic opioid mortality rate was more than seven times as high for those with a high school diploma only (SRR 7.7 [95% CI, 7.4–8.0]), and in the East, approximately thirteen times as high for those with a high school diploma only (SRR, 13.0 [95% CI, 12.7–13.3]) or less than a high school diploma (SRR, 13.3 [95% CI, 13.0–13.7]). Conclusion Disparities in rates of synthetic opioid mortality differ in the eastern and western US, supporting tailored responses within each region.

American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) people continue to face disproportionate challenges in the US. Health, education, employment, housing, and wealth statistics show the disastrous results of policies and programs. Some policies and programs were meant to improve the lives of AIAN people, but many were aimed directly at dispossession, despite the extreme hardship they caused. Historically-based structural disadvantages impinge on AIAN people’s civil rights, and redressing these issues requires plausible information about the future size, age structure, and locational distribution of the population. AIAN people and Tribal Nations are also subject to statistical racism, in which their data (and thus their successes and needs) are ignored because they are relatively small populations. Work toward equal access to resources for all Americans, including Indigenous people, has made it clear that we need to know how many AIAN people there will be in the future. Tribal Leaders require quality information about their people to effectively exercise tribal sovereignty. Data collection challenges impact AIAN people more than other groups, so traditional demographic methods of estimating a future population fall short with AIANs. To provide a basis for a forward-looking civil rights agenda, especially one focused on minor children and on people living in Tribal Areas such as reservations, this report presents population projections of the racially-identified AIAN population from the present to 2050 using a traditional demographic method that has been modified to account for net response change – one of the most significant data-related challenges. How many people currently identify as racially AIAN? The answer has a huge range depending on how AIAN is defined, and which data source is used. After centuries of interracial marriages and assimilation programs, family trees in the AIAN population are deeply multiracial. More than half of census-identified AIAN people report multiple races, and those who identify as single-race AIAN may also have non-AIAN people in their family trees. Despite the resistance of Native people, the painful history of forced assimilation has also produced millions of Americans with Indigenous heritage who do not currently racially identify as AIAN on the census. People in all race groups can (and many do) change their race responses over time, and this is likely to impact the future size and composition of the AIAN population. Census race response change has led to large net increases in the AIAN population in each decade since the Census Bureau started using self-identification to gather race data. Response change rates vary across time and place; for example, change is less common in Tribal Areas and more common among people reporting multiple races and/or Hispanic origins. If net response change continues in the next 30 years as it has in the past 50 years, the research presented in this report projects the 2050 AIAN population to be about 23.9 million people, including an estimated 17 million non-Hispanic AIAN people. If the geographic distribution of AIAN people remains consistent to 2050, over one in eight AIAN people will live in a Tribal Area (13.7%, up from 13.4% in 2020); over one-quarter (27.9%) of Tribal Area residents will be minor children. Of the anticipated 6.6 million Hispanic AIAN people in 2050, few are projected to live in Tribal Areas such as reservations. Hispanic AIAN people are likely to continue to include a large minority of people with Indigenous heritage who were born outside the U.S. New World colonization practices have deeply impacted Indigenous people throughout the Western Hemisphere, and AIAN immigrants are also subject to profound structural disadvantages. Policy makers, civil rights leaders, and governments often make plans based on the future size and composition of populations. However, AIAN populations have often been left out of statistical analyses and demographic projections. Tribal leaders also need high quality data about their populations in order to govern. Given the centralized nature of federal funds for data collection, tribes have limited resources for gathering their own data. Unfortunately, the 2020 Census data are of limited utility for a combination of reasons, creating serious problems with data equity for non-White and for rural populations, including many AIAN people living in Tribal Areas. Four policy recommendations are based on the research presented here: 1. The decennial census aims to reach every person but significantly undercounts AIAN people living in Tribal Areas. In order to increase the quality of data collected about people living in Tribal Areas while supporting tribal sovereignty, we must increase the power of Tribal Leaders in the data collection process. For example, Tribal Leaders could be given a significant budget and effective training programs to collect data about their citizens as part of the next decennial census. 2. To effectively understand topics important for AIAN equity, the Census Bureau could add a national survey similar to Statistics Canada’s Indigenous People’s Survey (IPS). Topics and questions for the IPS are developed with national Aboriginal organizations and the survey has a very high response rate. 3. Data disclosure and coding policies within the Census Bureau have significantly impacted the quality of available data about the AIAN populations throughout the U.S., including information about size and composition. Post-hoc analyses by the Census Bureau should look at the impact of their policies on AIAN data and release white papers and data crosswalks to support data users. 4. The Census Bureau should expand its partnering with Tribal Leaders to ensure that the released data is as useful as possible. For example, specialists nominated by AIAN organizations and/or Tribal Leaders should be given security clearance, access, and American Indian and Alaska Native Populations: Envisioning the Future © 2023 Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, UCLA, November 2023 23 training so that they can support Tribal staff and data users in effective use of the available data for Tribal governance. Implementing policy recommendations such as these would significantly improve Indigenous data equity and tribal sovereignty. With clear, relevant information about the AIAN population and subpopulations, policies can be developed to address shortfalls in the civil rights of AIAN people. Tribal leaders, analysts, policy makers, and the public must continue to push for the creation of high-quality data on AIAN people and assure that its use in analyses improves the lives of Indigenous people.

Background: Historically, US adults with intellectual disability (ID) experience worse healthcare access than the general population. However, the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have reduced disparities in healthcare access. Methods: Using a pre-ACA 2011–2013 sample and a post-ACA implementation 2014–2016 sample from the National Health Interview Survey data, we examined the association between the ACA's introduction and healthcare access among adults with ID (N = 623). Negative binomial regression models were used to test the association between the ACA and the total number of foregone healthcare services. Binary logistic regression was used to explore whether the ACA's implementation was associated with the increased likelihood of possessing health insurance as well as the decreased likelihood of any and particular measures of foregone healthcare services due to cost. Results: The study provides evidence that the ACA's implementation was associated with the decreased likelihood of the total number and any foregone care services owing to cost. Findings also revealed that the ACA's implementation was associated with expansion of health insurance coverage and decreasing instances of foregone care services for medical care, dental care, specialist visit and mental care among adults with ID. However, persons with ID were still at a higher risk of foregone prescription medicines, follow-up medical care and eyeglasses due to cost in the post-ACA years. Conclusions: The study provides evidence that healthcare access among Americans with ID improved after the ACA's implementation. However, challenges in access to follow-up care, eyeglasses and prescription medicines persist and require policy solutions, which extend beyond the ACA's provisions.

In 2018, the top 5 percent of homes in Greater Vancouver, based on their property value, had a median value of $3.7 million, but the median owner of a home in this group paid income taxes of just $15,800. Using data from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program, the authors analyze the relationship between homeowners’ income tax payments and the value of the homes they own. In metropolitan Toronto, the elasticity of non-corporate owners’ income taxes paid with respect to property value appears to be in line with that in many US cities, at roughly 0.7. (A 10 percent increase in property value is on average associated with a 7 percent increase in income tax paid.) In metropolitan Vancouver, that same elasticity is only about 0.3 or 0.5, depending on whether the elasticity is calculated on the basis of medians or means, and would be at or near the bottom among US metropolitan areas. These results call into question the overall progressivity of taxation in Greater Vancouver. We provide mixed evidence concerning the role of foreign buyers in making Vancouver’s income tax – property value relationship weak. In contrast to other Canadian and US metropolitan areas, Vancouver exhibited a particularly weak relationship between income tax and property value between 2011 and 2016. A modest minimum income tax based on property value could raise billions of dollars annually in both the Vancouver and Toronto metropolitan areas.

This dissertation broadly examines three policy-relevant questions using applied microeconomic methods. Chapter 1 investigates the long-run impact of childcare subsidies offered soon after birth on women's employment, earnings, and total hours worked. Using restricted data that links earnings records from the SSA/IRS to the SIPP 1984-2008 panels and the PSID, I implement a dynamic difference-indifference model that exploits variation in the timing of birth and the 2003 expansion to the Child and Dependent Care Credit. I find that early exposed women are 1.2 to 2.5 percentage points more likely to be employed in the short run. This effect grows in the long run, suggesting women stay engaged in the labor market. This translates to large earnings returns for early exposed women. Five to ten years after giving birth early exposed women earn between $6,100-$6,800 more per year. Chapter 2 assesses the return to college persistence for marginal students by comparing the labor market outcomes for students who graduate to those who drop out using propensity score matching. We use survey data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988 (NELS:88) linked to transcript records, which allows us to match graduates and non-graduates based on GPA and major. We find no significant difference in annual wages or the probability of healthcare coverage between dropouts and graduates. We do find evidence that dropouts are less likely to have a retirement plan and are less likely to be satisfied with their fringe benefit plan. Chapter 3 examines the effect of the Adult Student Grant, a need-based grant offered to adult students in Indiana. Using the synthetic control method and data from IPEDS, I find little evidence that total enrollment increased after the implementation of the Adult Student Grant. Increases in enrollment only occur in the Fall of the 2017 academic year after the launch of a re-enrollment campaign. This increase is largely driven by increases in public institutions

Scholars have paid considerable attention to the neighborhood assessments made by the New Deal era Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC); much has been said of how poor assessments relate to long-term disadvantage for Black neighborhoods. But we know little specifically about associations between HOLC gradings and contemporary concentrated Black poverty when controlling for historic racial/ethnic composition and changing neighborhood characteristics. This study uses a sample of 4,851 census tracts from 90 cities across the United States from the Mapping Decline project to see how HOLC assessments relate to concentrated Black poverty. We also leverage historical Census data collected by IPUMS and the Longitudinal Tract Database. Findings indicate that even in places without Black populations or economic disadvantage at the time of assessment poor HOLC gradings are related to concentrated Black poverty in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The racial and ethnic composition of the U.S. population is rapidly changing in response to decades of sustained large-scale immigration. In 1950, non-Hispanic Whites made up the vast majority of the population (90%). As of 2020, non-Hispanic Whites made up 58 percent of the nation’s population, and the Census Bureau projects that they will compose only half by 2044 (Colby & Ortman, 2015). These trends are occurring even more quickly for children and young adults. As early as 2018, non-Hispanic Whites made up less than half (49.9%) of the nation’s population under age 15. What should schools and educators anticipate over the next three decades? How is the school-aged population (ages 5-17) likely to change with respect to its racial and ethnic composition, generational status, home language, and educational attainment? Employing an innovative microsimulation model, we project both growing diversity for most places in the country, and reductions in the sociocultural distances between racial and ethnic groups. We project: A majority-minority patchwork among American school-age youth. By 2050, non-Hispanic White children are projected to compose 42% of the population age 5-17, Hispanics 29%, Blacks 17%, Asians and Pacific Islanders 7%, and children with multiracial or other identities 4%. Geographic spread of racial and ethnic heterogeneity. Racial and ethnic heterogeneity is projected to increase the most in areas with lower levels of heterogeneity in 2020, such as areas in the New England and the Midwest and cities like Boston, St. Louis, and Minneapolis. Conversely, racial and ethnic heterogeneity is projected to plateau in areas that already have high levels of heterogeneity in 2020, such as Florida, California, and the West Coast regions and cities like San Francisco and Washington, DC. This means that these states and cities have greater diversity within their overall population, but not that the neighborhoods, schools or school districts are actually The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the School-Age Population in the U.S. UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, November 2023. 14 integrated. School segregation of Blacks and Hispanics from White, Asian, and middle-class students is very high and has been intensifying since 1990 (Orfield and Pfleger, forthcoming 2023). Reductions in the number and share of children of immigrants. The number of first- or second-generation school-age children (i.e., foreign-born children and children of immigrant mothers) is projected to decline between 2020 and 2050, dropping from 16.8 million to 11.4 million, and the share of children of immigrant mothers would decline from 29% to 20%. The proportion of children of immigrants among Hispanics is projected to decrease from about 59% in 2020 to 24% in 2050. Among Asians, this proportion could decrease from 92% to 71%. Declines in non-English Home Language Use. We project substantial declines in the share of children speaking a non-English language at home, particularly among Hispanics (a 14 percentage point drop from 58% to 44%) and Asian/PI children (a 7 percentage point drop from 58% to 51%). Gains in Educational Attainment for Hispanics. Even in the absence of any improvements in educational opportunities, Hispanic children are projected to experience gains in educational attainment. The percentage of Hispanics with a college degree or more is projected to increase by more than 7 percentage points from 2020 to 2050 (from 30 to 37%). Conversely, the percentage of Hispanics projected to drop out of high school is projected to decline by nearly 3 percentage points (from 14% to 11%). However, these projected improvements are largely confined to Hispanics, and are attributable to the projected declines in the share of Hispanic children who have immigrant parents, who tend to have lower educational attainments. Hispanic children’s attainment are projected to remain well below the white level and Asians are projected to remain the highest. An Enduring Attainment Gap for Blacks. Black students’ attainment currently remains substantially lower than the other groups. If the existing trends continue there will be very little increase in college attainment for Black youth. The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the School-Age Population in the U.S. UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, November 2023. 15 Reducing Immigration in the Future Will Not Change These Trends. If the number of immigrants admitted to the country were to decrease substantially starting today under current policy frameworks, this would have little impact on the racial and ethnic composition of the child population. The major reason is that the U.S.-born children and young adults are already very heterogeneous, and changing future immigration levels will not alter that fact. Changes in Ethnic Identity Could Reduce Racial and ethnic Heterogeneity. About one-third of Asians and Hispanics are married to a person of a different race or ethnicity, most often White, and their children may not self-identify as Asian or Hispanic. If all or most children with at least one non-Hispanic White parent identified as non-Hispanic White, this would dramatically change the projected racial and ethnic composition of the school-aged population. Rather than a majority-minority patchwork, non-Hispanic Whites would continue to make up the majority of the population (although many of them would have Asian and Hispanic parents and grandparents). The complex nature of growing multiracialism is the subject of another paper in this series. Overall, the number and share of children with Latin American and Asian roots will increase in the future. At the same time, the share of Hispanic and Asian children with U.S.-born parents will increase. Under social conditions in which groups are treated equitably, these compositional changes are likely to be accompanied by reduced socio-cultural distances between groups, especially with regard to English language usage at home, educational attainment, and ethnic identity.

How did Progressive era reforms affect the lives of urban residents across U.S. cities? Some scholars argue that racist and nativist impulses permeated this movement, which primarily benefited white business owners. Others emphasize that reformers sought to improve urban living and working conditions and expand educational access, generating economic opportunity for disadvantaged groups. We answer this question leveraging new data on 455 U.S. cities from 1900-1940 combining dates of reform-style government adoption, deanonymized census records, voter turnout, and municipal budget data. Using a difference-indifferences design, we document the impact of Progressive reforms on political participation, public goods spending, and the relative socioeconomic well-being of black, immigrant, and working class residents visa -vis whites, natives, and business elites. While voter turnout decreased in reformed cities, we uncover only modest increases in earnings inequality across more and less advantaged groups and no significant differences in expenditure patterns as a consequence of reform.

Workhorse search and matching models assume constant bargaining weights, while recent evidence indicates that weights vary across time and in cross section. We endogenize bargaining weights in a life-cycle search and matching model by replacing a standard Cobb-Douglas (CD) matching function with a general constant elasticity of substitution (CES) matching function and study the implications for the long-term labor share and bargaining power in the U.S. The CES model explains 64 percent of the reported decline in the labor share since 1980, while the CD model explains only 28 percent of the decline. We then use the model to recover changes in bargaining power and find that workers’ bargaining power has declined 11 percent between 1980 and 2007 because of a decline in tightness.

In an article in Perspectives on Psychological Science, Roberts et al. (2020) analyzed racial representation among publications and authors within three fields of psychology, restricting their analysis to publications that highlight race. However, Roberts et al. did not present population base rates to provide context for their results. As a result, they interpreted their bibliometric analysis as indicating an over-representation of White authors in social and developmental psychology (in publications that highlight race) with no consideration of base rates. I demonstrate that when base rates are considered, the data suggest White under-representation in recent decades. Roberts and colleagues also report a correlation between non-White editorship, non-White authorship, and non-White participant recruitment, and then conclude that diverse editorship causes an increase in diverse authorship and participant recruitment. They do not consider that demographic change—an overall increase in the proportion of non-Whites in the U.S.—is an alternative explanation for this phenomenon. Secondary problems with the target article are also noted.

Are application hassles, or "ordeals," an effective way to limit public program enrollment? We provide new evidence by studying (removal of) an auto-enrollment policy for health insurance, adding an extra step to enroll. This minor ordeal has a major impact, reducing enrollment by 33% and differentially excluding young, healthy, and economically disadvantaged people. Using a simple model, we show that adverse selection-a classic feature of insurance markets-undermines ordeals' standard rationale of excluding low-value individuals, since they are also low-cost and may not be inefficient. Our analysis illustrates why ordeals targeting is unlikely to work well in selection markets.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: In 1891, a group of businessmen published a prospectus entitled "Marlinton, Pocahontas County, the Future Manufacturing and Industrial Center of the Virginias," designed to entice investment into a new town in the Greenbrier River Valley.1 The roster of businessmen associated with the plan for the Pocahontas Development Company (PDC) included men from Taylor and Marion Counties in West Virginia. Prominent politicians such as Johnson Newlon Camden and Aretus Brooks Fleming added weight to the proposal, but the final name in the listed directors stands out as the only local involved.2 Jacob Williamson Marshall, a merchant from Mingo Flats, had a long history of representing his community's economic and political interests in the Beverly Valley and the Greenbrier River Valley, and his participation in the PDC signified local interest to investors.3 While the modern understanding of the impact of extractive timber operations on West Virginia points to the PDC as a tool of rapid timber extraction, Marshall's role points to a different understanding of the town's purpose. An examination of the participation of a prominent local merchant in a plan to develop a town and infrastructure to support timber extraction highlights the nebulous line that separated economic invigoration from wholesale destruction for profit. This article contributes to a discussion of the role of insiders in nineteenth-century West Virginia's prelude to industrialized extractive practices that forever altered the geography of many regions of the state. The experience of locations such as Randolph and Pocahontas Counties in the timber industry stands as an example of the range of interests in play as the twentieth century dawned in West Virginia. Outsiders and foreign capitalists were not the only investors in opportunity, as locals exercised their power to drive rural communities into the global marketplace. Wilma Dunaway's analysis of world systems theory confirms that "the incorporation of Southern Appalachia's local economies into the capitalist world system involved every level of society."4 Examining [End Page 127] the world of a local merchant as he transitioned from antebellum practices of barter and subsistence to industrial extraction is important to understanding that economic level in West Virginia. Jacob Marshall's role as a merchant and economic guide in his community during western Virginia's antebellum growth can be compared to his involvement in late nineteenth-century practices of capitalist extraction across West Virginia and Appalachia. Although the political landscape shifted dramatically around Marshall's economic ventures, his place in the expansion in his region's economic development was not particularly tarnished by those changes. The Greenbrier River Valley held as much promise for Marshall at the end of his life as it did during his antebellum period of success, and he was, throughout, a born merchant. While his work and life were not remarkably different than other small merchants across western Virginia, an examination of the life of a resident who was neither an extractive capitalist nor a yeomen farmer is relevant to West Virginia's history.5 The transition to a professionalized method of wealth extraction was not necessarily removed from antebellum habits of rural merchants, who utilized distant relationships for income production. Practices such as the feedlot system, which involved coordination between rural brokers and outsider interests, have been examined by historian Ronald Lewis, and this article considers whether timber extraction was consistent with these types of business practices.6 Like merchants in other parts of Civil War–era Appalachia, the postwar economy of West Virginia was ripe for modernization. Steven Nash recognized that postwar development held potential to revive Appalachia's economy.7 Scholarship from Mary Beth Pudup suggests that men like Marshall struggled to achieve the promise of their early ventures due to the inability of the agriculture-based economy to rise above subsistence methods.8 The development of a sustained capitalistic economy was certainly influenced by transitioning politics within the state. Building on the work of historians such as Richard Curry, this article examines Marshall's place in the Democratic resurgence in West Virginia near the end of the nineteenth century, which opened resource development.9 State-level...