Alcohol-related mortality rates in the U.S. have risen since 2000, though how trends vary across socio-economic status is unclear. This analysis combines data from vital statistics and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to estimate alcohol-related mortality rates at four levels of educational attainment (less than high school, high school/GED, some college/associate’s degree, 4-year degree, or more) over the period 2000–2017. The analysis includes a comprehensive set of 48 alcohol-related causes of death, including causes which are indirectly influenced by alcohol use. I consider period and cohort patterns in inequality using the relative index of inequality (RII). Results indicate that alcohol-related mortality rates increased over the study period, at all levels of educational attainment. Relative increases were larger for females than males at nearly all ages and levels of educational attainment, and were largest among 45–59-year-old women. Male and female members of the 1950–1959 birth cohort exhibited elevated rates of alcohol-related mortality relative to neighboring cohorts. Despite widespread increases in alcohol-related mortality, educational inequalities present at the beginning of the analysis persisted and exceeded those in all-cause mortality. Disparities were typically greatest among younger adults aged 30–44, though inequality in this age group declined over time. Inequality increased among females aged 60–74, as well as among males aged 45–74. While interventions targeting these groups may reduce educational disparities, care should also be taken to stem the increasing prevalence of alcohol-related deaths at all levels of educational attainment.

Increasingly, governments focus on skilled immigration not only to fill labour market gaps but also due to a perceived political preference for such migration. Across debates in major immigrant-receiving nations, we observe an assumption that the ‘skill’ in ‘skilled immigration’ is clearly definable and easily differentiated from ‘unskilled’ or ‘semi-skilled’ migrant labour. Academic research in industrial relations and economics provides a more complex reading of the concept of ‘skill’ by interrogating the ways in which skill is accumulated. This article reviews concepts of ‘skill’ embedded in skilled immigration policies in five major Western democratic jurisdictions. It demonstrates the plurality of approaches to defining ‘skill’ within political and policy debates in these countries, and links these back to the prevailing theoretical perspectives. The article argues that greater attention by policy-makers and scholars of skilled immigration to the theoretical assumptions underpinning their preferred models of skilled immigration would better reveal the gendered and racialised biases of existing approaches to skills definition.

Millennials (born 1981–1996) are the largest portion of the US workforce, but very little research has examined and compared their health behaviors and health outcomes to previous generations. The purpose of this study was to compare health outcomes for Millennials (born 1981–1996) and Generation X-ers (born 1965– 1980) at the same age. Data on 9602 Generation X-ers and 7786 Millennials aged 20–35 years were analyzed from the 2000 and 2016 National Health Interview Survey. Mental, physical, and functional health outcomes were compared across the two groups using prevalence estimates and multivariable logistic regression models controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and risk factors. Compared to Generation X-ers who were 20–35 years of age in 2000, Millennials aged 20–35 in 2016 were more educated than Generation X-ers, but Millennials were more likely to live in poverty than Generation X-ers. Millennials were less likely to smoke than Generation X-ers at the same age and had improved health insurance coverage, but they were more likely to be obese. After controlling for sociodemographic variables, Millennials were more likely to report poor/fair self-rated health, chronic conditions, needing assistance with activities of daily living, and moderate-to-severe psychological distress compared to Generation X-ers of the same age. More research and innovative public health initiatives should focus on improving the health of the 73 million Millennials in the United States.

We examine how work norms affect Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) take-up rates in response to worsening economic conditions. By focusing on immigrants in the US, we can consider the influence of work norms in a person’s home country, which we argue are exogenous to labor market prospects in the US. We find that the probability of receiving SSDI is more sensitive to economic downturns among immigrants from countries where people place less importance on work. We also provide evidence that this result is not driven by differential sensitivities to the business cycle or differences in SSDI eligibility.

Residential segregation between African Americans and whites is a long-standing feature of the spatial structure of American cities. This study examines the levels and trends of segregation in 134 cities during 1900-1940 at multiple spatial scales, ranging from the household and dwelling to city wards. We report three main findings. First, racial segregation was already high at a local scale in 1900 and increased greatly in nearly all cities. Second, the scale of segregation in all kinds of cities shifted from individual streets with many black residents toward entire wards that were more highly divided by race. Third, among the many Northern cities with modest black populations, those with greater black presence were more segregated, consistent with a “group threat” hypothesis. In Southern cities and major Northern Destination cities, however, there is no support for this explanation. These findings lead toward a conclusion that the main trends creating the black ghetto by the mid-20th Century were national in scope, and future research should focus less on why some cities differed from others than on why such similar trajectories are found everywhere.

I would like to thank my advisor Ali Hortacsu and committee members Sam Kortum and Chad Syverson for their support and guidance on this article. I have also benefited from comments from Chris Adams, Fernando Alvarez, Allan Collard‐Wexler, Alejo Costa, Dan Hosken, Chang‐Tai Hsieh, Erik Hurst, Matthias Kehrig, Steven Levitt, Asier Mariscal, Benni Moll, Emi Nakamura, Ezra Oberfield, Adi Rom, Ted Rosenbaum, Nate Wilson, and Andy Zuppann, as well as Editor Marc Rysman and two anonymous referees. I appreciate the excellent comments that John Haltiwanger provided as a discussant at the 2011 NBER Summer Institute in Boston, and the help of Frank Limehouse at the Chicago Census Research Data Center, Randy Becker for assistance with deflators for the micro data, and Ryan Kellogg for data on amenities at the local area level. Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Census Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, or its Commissioners. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed.

We study the origins of labor productivity growth and its differences across sectors. In our model, sectors employ workers of different occupations and various forms of capital, none of which are perfect substitutes, and technology evolves at the sector-factor cell level. Using the model we infer technologies from US data over 1960-2017. We find sector-specific routine labor augmenting technological change to be crucial. It is the most important driver of sectoral differences, and has a large and increasing contribution to aggregate labor productivity growth. Neither capital accumulation nor the occupational employment structure within sectors explains much of the sectoral differences.

Using the recognition of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) by U.S. state courts as an exogenous shock to the risk of losing trade secrets, this study examines the effects of trade secrets on disclosure of forward-looking financial information. We find that management earnings forecast frequency and forecast horizon increases after the U.S. state where a firm is headquartered starts to recognize IDD. We also find that the effect of IDD recognition on management forecasts is more pronounced for firms that have larger market shares, higher product market competition, more intensive R&D, shorter distance to their industry rivals, and more employees who possess knowledge of the firms' trade secrets.

Using county-level analysis, this study demonstrates that there exists at most a minor relationship between the large, contemporary geographical variation in U.S. intergenerational income mobility and state-level policies. In addition to investigating the effects of specific policies, we introduce an omnibus test for state policy differences in total, based on the principle of geographic discontinuities. We further explore the discrepancy between these findings and the expected efficacy of mobility-enhancing policies seen in common applied economic models and successful program evaluations. We conclude that the gap between quasi-experimental evaluations and observed policy effects presents pressing questions for further study

Background Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have a similar risk of myocardial infarction as those with diabetes mellitus (DM). Whether the risk of heart failure (HF) in SLE is similar to the elevated risk in DM is unknown. We sought to estimate the rates and risks for HF hospitalization among US Medicaid patients with SLE and to compare them to those for DM and the general Medicaid population. Methods Using U.S. Medicaid data from 2007–2010, we identified patients with SLE or DM, and a matched cohort from the general Medicaid population and calculated incidence rates (IR), incidence rate ratios (IRR) and adjusted hazard ratios (HR) of a first HF hospitalization. Results We identified 37,902 SLE (93% female, mean age 40.1 ± 12.1), 76,657 DM (93% female, mean age 40.0 ± 12.1), and 158,695 general Medicaid patients (93% female, mean age 40.2 ± 12.1). The IR per 1000-person years was 6.9 (95% CI 6.3–7.5) for SLE, 6.6 (95% CI 6.2–7.0) for DM, and 1.6 (95% CI 1.5–1.8) for general Medicaid patients. The highest IRR compared to general Medicaid was seen among SLE patients in age group 18–39 (14.7, 95% CI 13.9–15.5). Multivariable-adjusted HRs for HF compared to general Medicaid population were similar for SLE (2.7, 95% CI 2.3–3.1) and DM (3.0, 95% CI 2.6–3.4). Conclusion The incidence of HF among SLE patients was 2.7-fold higher than general Medicaid patients, and similar to DM. Further investigation into the biologic mechanism of HF among SLE compared to non-SLE and DM patients may shed light on the findings of this study.

Paid family leave has become a prominent topic of US policy discussions. In 2004, California became the first state in the United States to implement a paid family leave policy. The current body of research on California’s Paid Family Leave policy (CA-PFL), as well as most of the research on maternity and parental leave more generally, focuses on leave take-up and employment outcomes. Paid family leave less than one year in length increases labor market attachment through increased job continuity, female employment, and hours . . . .

Intergroup violence is assumed to play a key role in establishing and maintaining gang competitive dominance. However, it is not clear how competitive ability, gang size and reciprocal violence interact. Does competitive dominance lead to larger gangs, or allow them to remain small? Does competitive dominance lead gangs to mount more attacks against rivals, or expose them to more attacks? We explore a model developed in theoretical ecology to understand communities arranged in strict competitive hierarchies. The model is extended to generate expectations about gang size distributions and the directionality of gang violence. Model expectations are explored with twenty-three years of data on gang homicides from Los Angeles. Gangs may mitigate competitive pressure by quickly finding gaps in the spatial coverage of superior competitors. Competitively superior gangs can be larger or smaller than competitively inferior gangs and a disproportionate source or target of directional violence, depending upon where exactly they fall in the competitive hierarchy. A model specifying the mechanism of competitive dominance is needed to correctly interpret gang size and violence patterns.

Accountants and auditors as a percent of the US labor force 1850 to 2016 updating the analysis in Wyatt and Hecker (2006).

To summarize the literature on barriers and facilitators to breast and cervical cancer screening among immigrants to the US. A literature review was conducted for studies on breast and cervical cancer screening among immigrant populations. A thematic analysis of 180 studies identified a variety of barriers and facilitators to screening at the personal and system levels. Personal barriers included lack of knowledge and insurance coverage, high cost of care, and immigration status. System barriers included poor access to services, lack of interpreter services, and insensitivity to patient needs. Facilitators to screening included knowledge of disease, access to information sources, physician recommendation, and social networks. Cultural norms and resource availability at the individual and system levels influence screening among immigrants. Health insurance coverage was found to be an important predictor of preventative screening use. Future research should seek to identify the best way to address this and other barriers to cancer screening among immigrants groups.

We develop a dynamic lifecycle model to study long-run changes in college completion and the relative ability of college versus non-college students in the early twentieth century. The model is disciplined in part by constructing a historical time series on real college costs from printed government documents dating to 1916. The model captures nearly all of the increase in attainment and ability sorting between college and non-college individuals between the 1900 to 1950 birth cohorts. Time variation in college costs, the college earnings premium, and the precision of ability signals all play a critical role for explaining different data moments and time periods, primarily through their interaction with binding borrowing constraints. Our quantitative results imply that attainment is broadly driven by the interaction of changing real college costs and the rising earnings premium, while ability sorting is driven by the earnings premium and increasing precision of ability signals.

Transitions in the American religious landscape including religious nonaffiliation, congregational and seminary enrollment declines, and the proliferation of megachurches have reshaped the clergy labor market and increased the precariousness of this type of work. One potential indication of this growing instability is the supposedly increasing number of bivocational clergy who depend on a second job to supplement their income. There are few reliable data, however, that can trace out national‐level trends of bivocational clergy. Using the Current Population Survey, this study tests whether there has been any proportional increase in bivocational clergy and to what extent such an increase has been localized to certain groups. We find that the percentage of clergy who report having a second job has not increased since 1996. However, clergy who are female, unmarried, or working in the American northeast are increasingly likely to report working a second job. These trends suggest that clergy who receive occupational advantages—due to gender or marital status—or who live in highly religious/low cost‐of‐living regions of the country may be protected from taking on a second job whereas those clergy without these advantages increasingly must depend on additional sources of income.

Educational assortative mating patterns in the U.S. have changed since the 1960s, but we know little about the effects of these patterns on children, particularly on infant health. Rising educational homogamy may alter prenatal contexts through parental stress and resources, with implications for inequality. Using 1969-1994 NVSS birth data and aggregate cohort-state census measures of spousal similarity of education and labor force participation as instrumental variables (IV), this study estimates effects of parental educational similarity on infant health. Controlling for both maternal and paternal education, results support family systems theory and suggest that parental educational homogamy is beneficial for infant health while hypergamy is detrimental. These effects are stronger in later cohorts and are generally limited to mothers with more education. Hypogamy estimates are stable by cohort, suggesting that rising female hypogamy may have limited effect on infant health. In contrast, rising educational homogamy could have increasing implications for infant health. Effects of parental homogamy on infant health could help explain racial inequality of infant health and may offer a potential mechanism through which inequality is transmitted between generations.

Cultural shifts in Odessa in the 1980s, such as the desegregation order of 1982, threatened the status quo of the town in a number of ways, not the least of which was high school football. Additionally, the town was experiencing a period of financial strife following a one of immense wealth due to the fallen price of oil, which dictates the nature of the economy for the entirety of the town. The events that propelled desegregation on top of a struggling economy meant that the people of Odessa felt themselves being thrust about in a changing world with no clear idea of what their new role would be. In my first chapter, “Feast or Famine,” I explain the culture of Odessa, Texas by examining two key facets: the oil-based economy and the rise of Permian football. Though seemingly unrelated, the consistency of the Panthers’ success compensated for the insecurities brought on by the town’s boom and bust economy. I highlight the positive effects Permian football has on Odessa, an element of analysis that is fundamentally lacking in Bissinger’s work. In my second chapter, “A Form of Educational Malpractice,” I outline the battle for desegregation in Odessa, pulling from the experiences of both educators and students from this time in addition to related newspaper articles archived by ECISD. Odessa’s abnormal timeline for desegregating is imperative in framing the racial attitudes of the town in the 1980s, and the intersection of race and sports is crucial both to my analysis and to Bissinger’s. My third and final chapter, “Where’s That Book Writer Dude?” describes how Bissinger became a part of the Permian family, the impressions he left on those he encountered, and the lasting impact of Friday Night Lights. Given that his work tells the stories of real people, giving Odessans a chance to voice their feelings of betrayal after Bissinger profited off their story is critical to my goals in writing this thesis.

This paper reviews the literature in historical record linkage in the U.S. and examines the performance of widely-used record linking algorithms and common variations in their assumptions. We use two highquality, hand-linked datasets and one synthetic ground truth to examine the direct effects of linking algorithms on data quality. We find that (1) no algorithm (including hand-linking) consistently produces representative samples; (2) 15 to 37 percent of links chosen by widely-used algorithms are classified as errors by trained human reviewers; and (3) false links are systematically related to baseline sample characteristics, showing that some algorithms may induce systematic measurement error into analyses. A case study shows that the combined effects of (1)-(3) attenuate estimates of the intergenerational income elasticity by up to 20 percent, and common variations in algorithm assumptions result in greater attenuation. As current practice moves to automate linking and increase link rates, these results highlight the important potential consequences of linking errors on inferences with linked data. We conclude with constructive suggestions for reducing linking errors and directions for future research.

We show that the structural change of the economy from agriculture to industry was a major determinant of the observed shift in intergenerational coresidence. We build a one-good, two-sector overlapping generation model of the structural change out of agriculture, in which the coresidence choice is endogenous. We calibrate the model on U.S. data and simulate it. The model can match the decline in U.S. intergenerational coresidence both qualitatively and quantitatively.