Purpose We assess the effectiveness of multilevel regression with poststratification (MRP) as a tool to mitigate selection bias from online surveys of small geographical regions. Methods We collected self-reported health information from an Internet-based sample of adults residing within the St. Louis, MO, metropolitan area in 2017. We created Bayesian hierarchical models with three sets of predictor variables for each of six common health behaviors and outcomes, with results poststratified using the American Community Survey to estimate region and ZIP Code Tabulation Area–level prevalence. Results When comparing MRP estimates with a population-based sample as a reference, we found that adjustment using MRP can reduce bias in prevalence estimates and provide estimates for local area prevalence. 14 of 18 adjusted estimates were closer to the benchmark than the unadjusted estimates and MRP using all three covariate sets resulted in better overall agreement with the benchmark compared with the unadjusted estimates. Conclusions MRP can improve prevalence estimates from self-selected Internet-based samples, although a nonnegligible amount of bias may remain. Illustrating the utility and limitations of this method will help researchers develop relevant estimates of the local public health burden, helping local health officials better understand and reduce poor health outcomes.

There are four themes from the Golden State IVE story that we think are relevant for Californians and non-Californians alike—and that we hope are easy to remember given its appropriate acronym: vote, organize, transform, and engage (VOTE). Taken together, these themes capture why groups employ IVE as a power-building strategy, what they are able to accomplish by harnessing IVE as part of their broader movement building, and the nuts and bolts of how they implement IVE. We think that this frame offers different pathways to expanding the IVE ecosystem depending on an organization’s particular goals and priorities— and that this may be a helpful lens through which to read the full report: VOTE—A focus on tipping points, turnout, and technology in order to have decisive influence on closely-contested electoral outcomes and to leverage that influence for bolder proposals that reach beyond what is winnable and towards the kind of change that is needed. ORGANIZE—A stress on rooting the work in an ecosystem of local grassroots organizing groups committed to developing leaders to engage voters, recruiting voters to become members, and bridging local-state work. TRANSFORM—A vision for governance by transforming who votes, the issues they vote on, and redefining notions of citizenship and civic participation among those who are or have been excluded from voting. ENGAGE—A commitment to engaging voters year-round and between election cycles, engaging the most impacted communities and constituencies, and not only addressing issues that they care about but also challenging beliefs and biases that divide communities.

Does structural transformation matter for gender equality? This paper reviews the gender impacts of the highest value export industry in low and middle income countries-the extractive industries (oil, gas and mining). First, we analyze crosscountry relationships between natural resource dependence and gender welfare indicators. Countries that are dependent on natural resource rents have greater gender inequality, lower education levels and more patriarchal norms, even after taking GDP per capita levels into account. Second, we conduct a comprehensive review of the empirical literature on the impact of extractive industries on women and gender relations, covering topics such as labor force participation, marriage markets, health, and security. The review points to extractive industries as a mixed blessing for women, showing heterogeneity across genders, sectors, and contexts. We propose new directions for research to ensure that extractive industries generate inclusive growth.

A sizable proportion of United States Hispanics live in segregated communities. The rising Hispanic population in the United States and the negative association of enclave-residence with earnings have given rise to the concern that a large part of the current and future labor force, native and immigrant Hispanics, may struggle to improve social mobility and integration into the mainstream United States population. However, the causal effect of enclave-residence on earnings of Hispanics in the United States remains an open question given that previous studies have not addressed the non-random distribution of individuals into and out of enclaves. Using a longitudinal data set I address the non-random location decision of individuals to identify a causal link between enclave-residence and earnings of Hispanics. I find a much larger negative impact of enclave-residence on earnings than previous studies. However, the results also show that enclave-residence is associated with longer durations of employment. Second generation immigrant Hispanics appear to be immune from the wage penalty that is associated with enclaves.

Objectives Neighborhood characteristics are increasingly recognized as important determinants of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, longitudinal studies on the health impacts of neighborhood characteristics are rare. We sought to investigate whether neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES) during birth, childhood and adulthood is associated with CVD risk factors in adulthood. Methods Using longitudinal data from the New England Family Study (n = 671) with 46-years of follow-up, participants' home addresses were geocoded at birth (mean age = 1.6 months), childhood (mean age = 7.1 years), and adulthood (mean age = 44.2 years) across Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the US from 1961 to 2007. We used multilevel models to evaluate associations of NSES across the life-course with systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and body mass index (BMI) in adulthood, adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, mother's race, individual SES, and parental SES. Results In fully adjusted models, one standard deviation higher NSES at birth was associated with a 1.9 mmHg lower SBP (95% CI: 3.8, −0.1) and 1.3 mmHg lower DBP (95%CI: 2.6,-0.03) in adulthood; while one standard deviation of higher NSES at adulthood was associated with 0.87 kg/m2 lower BMI (95%CI: 1.7, −0.1). Conclusions We found that living in a socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhood early in life and in adulthood was associated with blood pressure and BMI, respectively, two established risk factors for CVD. Our findings support a longitudinal association between exposure to socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in early life and CVD risk factors in adulthood.

Robust evidence shows that the Voting Rights Act increased voter turnout among citizens of color, with signifcant downstream effects on representation, school funding, and the black-white wage gap. In 2013, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder and subsequent Congressional inaction ended preclearance—a key enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act. To assess whether the removal of preclearance reduced voter turnout and support for Democratic presidential candidates, I leverage difference-in-differences variation in preclearance removal using county election returns and national election surveys. I and little evidence that preclearance removal reduced voter turnout, either overall or among voters of color. In contrast to journalistic accounts, I show that preclearance removal may have increased Democratic vote share.

We document that income elastic-sectors are more intensive in high- and low-skill occupations than income inelastic sectors, which are relatively more middle-skill intensive. As a result, increases in aggregate expenditure have an asymmetric effect on labor demand across occupations and cause labor-market polarization. We quantify the importance of this demand-driven labor market polarization for the US using a general equilibrium model with nonhomothetic demand and endogenous job assignment. Our model is calibrated to match aggregate variables in 1980 and household-level estimates of sectoral income elasticities. We fnd that the increase in aggregate expenditure from 1980 to 2016 accounts for 50% of the increase in the wage bill share of high-skill occupations, 60% of the decline for medium-skill occupations and virtually all of the increase in the wage bill share of low-skill occupations. This mechanism is also quantiatively important to understand the evolution of labor market outcomes across occupations in the period 1950-1980 and in other developed economies.

Political equality is the most basic tenet of democracy. Yet in America and other democratic nations, those with political power have special access to markets and public services. A Republic of Equals traces the massive income inequality observed in the United States and other rich democracies to politicized markets and avoidable gaps in opportunity—and explains why they are the root cause of what ails democracy today. In this provocative book, economist Jonathan Rothwell draws on the latest empirical evidence from across the social sciences to demonstrate how rich democracies have allowed racial politics and the interests of those at the top to subordinate justice. He looks at the rise of nationalism in Europe and the United States, revealing how this trend overlaps with racial prejudice and is related to mounting frustration with a political status quo that thrives on income inequality and inefficient markets. But economic differences are by no means inevitable. Differences in group status by race and ethnicity are dynamic and have reversed themselves across continents and within countries. Inequalities persist between races in the United States because Black Americans are denied equal access to markets and public services. Meanwhile, elite professional associations carve out privileged market status for their members, leading to compensation in excess of their skills. A Republic of Equals provides a bold new perspective on how to foster greater political and social equality, while moving societies closer to what a true republic should be.

Existing resources of population data, provided by national censuses in the form of areal aggregates, have usually insufficient resolution for many practical applications. Dasymetric modelling has been a standard technique to disaggregate census aggregates into finer grids. Although dasymetric modelling of population distribution is well-established, most literature focuses on proposing new variants of the technique, while only few are devoted to developing broad-scale population grids that could be used for real-life applications. This paper reviews literature on construction of broad-scale population grids using dasymetric modelling. It also describes an R implementation of fully automated framework to calculate such grids from aggregated data provided by national censuses. The presented implementation has been used to produce high resolution, multi-year comparable, U.S.-wide population datasets that are the part of the SocScape (Social Landscape) project.

Federal programs are critical for helping those with low incomes make ends meet. But not all such programs are equally effective at reducing poverty, nor do they benefit all of those in poverty uniformly. In this brief, we explore the extent to which rural and urban residents access five social programs—Social Security, disability benefits,1 federal and state cash assistance,2 the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)— and the effect of these programs individually and collectively in bringing family incomes closer to the poverty threshold. Research has long shown the benefit of Social Security to elderly populations3 and the role of SNAP and the EITC in reducing poverty among families with young children.4 This brief expands this line of inquiry by analyzing the effects of these programs for rural and urban residents.

We examine the long-run impacts of having a same-race teacher. First, we leverage data from the Tennessee STAR class-size experiment to show that black students randomly assigned to a black teacher in grades K-3 are 5 percentage points (7%) more likely to graduate from high school and 4 percentage points (13%) more likely to enroll in college than their same-school, same-race peers not assigned to a black teacher. Second, we replicate these results in North Carolina using quasi-experimental methods. Finally, we formally define "role model effects" as information provision, which facilitates an exploration of possible mechanisms that drive these results. Abstract: We examine the long-run impacts of having a same-race teacher. First, we leverage data from the Tennessee STAR class-size experiment to show that black students randomly assigned to a black teacher in grades K-3 are 5 percentage points (7%) more likely to graduate from high school and 4 percentage points (13%) more likely to enroll in college than their same-school, same-race peers not assigned to a black teacher. Second, we replicate these results in North Carolina using quasi-experimental methods. Finally, we formally define "role model effects" as information provision, which facilitates an exploration of possible mechanisms that drive these results.

Our project examines the association between percent African American and smoke pollution in the form of prescribed burn-sourced, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the U.S. state of Georgia for 2018. (1) Background: African Americans constitute 32.4% of Georgia’s population, making it the largest racial/ethnic minority group in the state followed by Hispanic Americans at 9.8%. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and lower wealth groups are more likely than most middle and upper income White Americans to be exposed to environmental pollutants. This is true because racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in urban areas where pollution is more concentrated. As a point of departure, we examine PM2.5 concentrations specific to prescribed fire smoke, which typically emanates from fires occurring in rural or peri-urban areas. Two objectives are specified: a) examine the association between percent African American and PM2.5 concentrations at the census tract level for Georgia, and b) identify emitters of PM2.5 concentrations that exceed National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for the 24-h average, i. e., >35 µg/m3 . (2) Methods: For the first objective, we estimate a spatial Durbin error model (SDEM) where pollution concentration (PM2.5) estimates for 1683 census tracts are regressed on percent of the human population that is African American or Hispanic; lives in mobile homes; and is employed in agriculture and related occupations. Also included as controls are percent evergreen forest, percent mixed evergreen/deciduous forest, and variables denoting lagged explanatory and error variables, respectively. For the second objective, we merge parcel and prescribed burn permit data to identify landowners who conduct prescribed fires that produce smoke exceeding the NAAQS. (3) Results: Percent African American and mobile home dweller are positively related to PM2.5 concentrations; and government and non-industrial private landowners are the greatest contributors to exceedance levels (4) Conclusions: Reasons for higher PM2.5 concentrations in areas with higher African American and mobile home percent are not clear, although we suspect that neither group is a primary contributor to prescribed burn smoke but rather tend to live proximate to entities, both public and private, that are. Also, non-industrial private landowners who generated prescribed burn smoke exceeding NAAQS are wealthier than others, which suggests that African American and other environmental justice populations are less likely to contribute to exceedance levels in the state.

Warrantless domestic violence arrest laws allow officers to make arrests of alleged offenders of domestic violence without warrants given probable cause. Existing literature classifies these laws into three groups based on the degree of arrest authority given to officers: discretionary, preferred, and mandatory. Using our updating of each type of warrantless domestic violence arrest law, we examine the causal effect of these laws on intimate partner homicides using differences-in-differences. In contrast to Iyengar (2009), we find no evidence that mandatory arrest laws, which remove officer discretion by making arrest a required action, increased intimate partner homicides. Instead, we find some evidence that discretionary arrest statutes, which allowed officer discretion to make arrests, decreased current and former spousal homicides.

The Nurse Licensure Compact forged an environment of multi-state professional licensing. Under the compact, registered nurses licensed in one of the now twenty-five party states may legally practice in the other participating states. This paper examines how mutual reciprocity of occupational licensing reduces barriers to employment. A sample of active duty military spouses, who do not have the luxury of making relocation decisions based on license transfer- ability, was constructed using the American Communities Survey from 2001 to 2015 in order to identify effects on labor market participation. One would otherwise be confounded by the influence of employment opportunities on location selection. Both logistic regression and a linear probability model with state and year fixed effects are used to estimate the effect of multistate licensing. The treatment group consists of nurses whose military spouse was re- cently relocated from one party state to another participating state and consequently would be eligible for license reciprocity. The control group is composed of similar nurses whose spouse’s duty reassignment was not between compact states for whom re-entering the workforce would require re-certification in the new state. Results indicate significant reductions in departures from the labor force, identifying the labor market inefficiencies created by single-state profes- sional licensing.

U.S. public schools are highly segregated by both race and class. Prior research shows that the desegregation of Southern schools in the 1960s and 1970s led to significant benefits for black students, including increased educational attainment and higher earnings. We do not know, however, whether segregation today has the same harmful effects as it did 50 years ago, nor do we have clear evidence about the mechanisms through which segregation affects achievement patterns. In this paper we estimate the effects of current-day school segregation on racial achievement gaps. We use 8 years of data from all public school districts in the U.S. We find that racial school segregation is strongly associated with the magnitude of achievement gaps in 3rd grade, and with the rate at which gaps grow from third to eighth grade. The association of racial segregation with achievement gaps is completely accounted for by racial differences in school poverty: racial segregation appears to be harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are, on average, less effective than lower-poverty schools. Finally, we conduct exploratory analyses to examine potential mechanisms through which differential enrollment in high-poverty schools leads to inequality. We find that the effects of school poverty do not appear to be explained by differences in the set of measurable teacher or school characteristics available to us.

This article assesses the connection between immigration and wage inequality in the United States. Departing from the focus on how the average wages of different native groups respond to immigration, we examine how immigrants shape the overall wage distribution. Despite evidence indicating that an increased presence of low-skilled immigrants is associated with losses at the lower end of wage distribution, we do not observe a similar result between high-skilled immigrants and natives at the upper end. Instead, the presence of foreign-born workers, whether high- or low-skilled, is associated with substantial gains for high-wage natives, particularly those at the very top. Consequently, increased immigration is associated with greater wage dispersion.

The spectacular growth of urban areas and the rise of large scale urban systems are prominent features of the contemporary spatial distribution of population. A century ago few individual countries were majority urban; in the past decade the world’s population crossed that threshold and is trending toward even higher levels of urbanization. This chapter reviews the macro-level features of urban systems and the micro-level spatial patterns of land use and residential distributions within urban areas. It addresses macro-level questions such as: Why do cities exist?, Why are cities located where they are found?, Why do cities vary in size and direction and magnitude of growth?, Why are cities embedded in hierarchically organized systems? It also addresses micro-level questions such as: How does land use vary spatially within urban areas and why? and What are the patterns and determinants of differential residential distribution and segregation of social groups in urban space?

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid target largely overlapping low-income populations and therefore may interact with each other. Participation in either program may make participation in the other less costly, but SNAP may also reduce demand for Medicaid coverage through impacts on health. The aggregate effects of SNAP on Medicaid enrollment and spending are therefore unclear a priori. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the aggregate impacts of SNAP participation on Medicaid enrollment and spending. We combine state-level information on SNAP participation, Medicaid outcomes, and state changes in SNAP and Medicaid policy over time. To address the endogeneity of SNAP participation, we employ a novel simulated eligibility instrumental variables framework exploiting variation in state policy generosity. We find evidence that higher SNAP participation greatly increases Medicaid enrollment. A one percentage point increase in the percentage of the population in SNAP results in a 1.1 percentage point increase in the percentage enrolled in Medicaid. Enrollment increases are larger for adults than children, and we find no evidence of enrollment increases for seniors. Further, we find no evidence that SNAP participation increases overall Medicaid spending per capita, but we do find that it decreases Medicaid spending per enrollee. These findings suggest that the lowered costs to SNAP participants of enrolling in Medicaid dominate any health or other effects of SNAP that would lower Medicaid enrollment, but marginal Medicaid enrollees of these kind cost less to cover than other enrollees on average.

Environmental heat is a growing concern in cities as a consequence of rapid urbanization and climate change, threatening human health and urban vitality. The transportation system is naturally embedded in the issue of urban heat and human heat exposure. Research has established how heat poses a threat to urban inhabitants and how urban infrastructure design can lead to increased urban heat. Yet there are gaps in understanding how urban communities accumulate heat exposure, and how significantly the urban transportation system influences or exacerbates the many issues of urban heat. This dissertation focuses on advancing the understanding of how modern urban transportation influences urban heat and human heat exposure through three research objectives: 1) Investigate how human activity results in different outdoor heat exposure; 2) Quantify the growth and extent of urban parking infrastructure; and 3) Model and analyze how pavements and vehicles contribute to urban heat. In the urban US, traveling outdoors (e.g. biking or walking) is the most frequent activity to cause heat exposure during hot periods. However, outdoor travel durations are often very short, and other longer activities such as outdoor housework and recreation contribute more to cumulative urban heat exposure. In Phoenix, parking and roadway pavement infrastructure contributes significantly to the urban heat balance, especially during summer afternoons, and vehicles only contribute significantly in local areas with high density rush hour vehicle travel. Future development of urban areas (especially those with concerns of extreme heat) should focus on ensuring access and mobility for its inhabitants without sacrificing thermal comfort. This may require urban redesign of transportation systems to be less auto-centric, but without clear pathways to mitigating impacts of urban heat, it may be difficult to promote transitions to travel modes that inherently necessitate heat exposure. Transportation planners and engineers need to be cognizant of the pathways to increased urban heat and human heat exposure when planning and designing urban transportation systems.