Voter discrimination may also have indirect implications to the extent that in equilibrium candidates endogenously respond to voter bias. In studies of labor market discrimination, a prevailing theme is that minorities should sort away from prejudiced firms in order to minimize the negative effects of bias on wages (Becker (1971), Charles and Guryan (2008)). In politics, it is plausible that minority candidates respond to voter bias in similar fashion by seeking office where bias is less likely to operate. In this case, Hispanic candidates should disproportionately seek office in districts with relatively large shares of Hispanic voters where prejudice against Hispanics is arguably less prevalent. We will assess this possibility using data on local election . . .

We study how manufacturing decline and local housing booms contributed to changes in labour market outcomes during the 2000s, focusing on the distributional consequences across geographical areas and demographic groups. Using a local labour markets design, we estimate that manufacturing decline significantly reduced employment between 2000 and 2006, while local housing booms increased employment. These results suggest that housing booms ‘masked’ employment declines that would have occurred earlier in the absence of the booms. This ‘masking’ occurred both within and between cities and demographic groups. We find that roughly 40% of the reduction in employment during the 2000s can be attributed to manufacturing decline and that these negative effects would have appeared earlier had it not been for the large, temporary increases in housing demand.

In the late twentieth century, researchers began calling attention to declining social capital in America and the potential consequences of this trend for a healthy society. While researchers empirically assessed the decline in social capital from the mid-1900s onward, this line of research diminished when the major source of data, the General Social Survey, stopped fielding critical questions in 2004. We do not know, therefore, whether social capital, especially associational social capital, has declined, stabilized, or even increased in a twentyfirst century America. In this paper, we develop a new measure of associational social capital using a confirmatory factor analysis of six indicators from the Civic Engagement Supplement to the Current Population Survey for 2008–2011 and 2013. Our findings support previous research suggesting that associational social capital does not seem to be declining over time. However, we do find evidence of a nonlinear decrease in associating during the Great Recession years. Across the entire time period, though, membership in groups has not declined and there has been little practical change in the amount of time that individuals spend with neighbors. Our analysis of the variance of social capital also shows no general change in the national dispersion of social capital from 2008 to 2013. The paper advances the measurement of social capital and updates our understanding of its possible decline.

Racial residential segregation is interconnected with several other phenomena such as income inequalities, property values inequalities, and racial disparities in health and in education. Furthermore, recent literature suggests the phenomena of gentrification as a cause of perpetuation or increase of racial residential segregation in some American cities. In this paper, we analyze the dynamics of racial residential segregation for white, black, Asian, and Hispanic citizens in New York City in the years of 1990, 2000, and 2010. It was possible to observe that segregation between white and Hispanic citizens, and discrimination between white and Asian ones has grown, while segregation between white and black is quite stable. Furthermore, we analyzed the per capita income and the Gini coefficient in each segregated zone, showing that the highest inequalities occur in the zones where there is overlap of high-density zones of pair of races. Focusing on census tracts that have changed density of population during these twenty years, and, particularly, by analyzing white and black people’s segregation, our analysis reveals that a positive flux of white (black) people is associated to a substantial increase (decrease) of the property values, as compared with the city mean. Furthermore, by clustering the region of high density of black citizens, we measured the variation of area and displacement of the four biggest clusters in the period from 1990 to 2010. The large displacements ( ≈ 1 . 6 km) observed for two of these clusters, namely, one in the neighborhood of Harlem and the other inside the borough of Brooklyn, led to the emergence of typically gentrified regions.

Child support policies in the United States have expanded dramatically since the mid-1970s and now cover 1 in 5 children. This paper studies the consequences of child support for marriage and fertility decisions. I first introduce a model showing that child support enforces ex ante commitment from men to provide financial support in the event of a child, which (1) increases premarital sex among couples unlikely to marry, and (2) reduces the abortion rate, by lessening the cost of raising a child as a single mom. Using variation in the timing and geography of the rollout of U.S. child support laws relative to the timing of pregnancy, from 1977 to 1992, I find that marriages following an unplanned pregnancy are less likely to occur under strengthened child support laws, accounting for about a 7-8 percentage point reduction relative to a base of 38 percent. I find that the child support rollout reduced the abortion rate by 1-2 per 1000 women aged 15-44, off a base of 28, representing about 50 percent of the total decline in the abortion rate over this period.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program) targets low-income households and provides benefits used to purchase food. Through supplementing food consumption or freeing up income for other purposes, SNAP benefit receipt may impact recipients’ health outcomes. It is also possible that SNAP has little overall impact on health at all, especially when considering extreme health outcomes like mortality. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impacts of SNAP on various mortality rates. We combine county-level information on SNAP participation, mortality, and state changes in SNAP 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 reduces the overall mortality rate. Specifically, a one percentage point increase in the SNAP participation rate reduces the overall mortality rate by about 6.68 deaths per 100,000 population on average, or by about 0.81% of the mean overall mortality rate. These mortality reductions are concentrated most heavily among males, whites, and adults aged 20-64. We identify reductions in deaths from major cardiovascular disease and malignant neoplasms as major drivers of these estimated effects, and we also estimate a significant reduction in suicides in some areas

This dissertation examines two subjects. After an introduction, the next two chapters examine banks owned and operated by African-Americans before World War II. The final chapter looks at Newfoundland’s political economy from 1867 to 1949. Chapter 2, “Banking on African-American Business,” uses a newly-created data set of banks owned and managed by African Americans from 1907 to 1930. I provide the first analysis of the contribution of African-American banks to the development of African-American communities. Economic progress is measured by business ownership, proxied by the number of African-Americans who reported employing at least one person, as well as white-collar occupations, mortgages, and home ownership. Fixed effects analysis shows that an additional African-American bank per ten thousand AfricanAmerican adults in a county increased the share of African-Americans employing at least one person by 1.9 percentage points, 1.5 times the median rate. Put another way, African-American banks from 1907 to 1930 created roughly 14,000 African-American business owners. This effect persists when limiting the sample to both the South and the Cotton South. The effects on white-collar occupations and home ownership are positive but relatively small, and seen in both the North and the South. Overall, African-American banks made significant contributions to their communities, contrary...

While the population of the United States has been predominantly urban for nearly 100 years, periodic transformations of the concepts and measures that define urban places and population have taken place, complicating over-time comparisons. We compare and combine data series of officially-designated urban areas, 1990–2010, at the census block-level within Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) with a satellite-derived consistent series on built-up area from the Global Human Settlement Layer to create urban classes that characterize urban structure and provide estimates of land and population. We find considerable heterogeneity in urban form across MSAs, even among those of similar population size, indicating the inherent difficulties in urban definitions. Over time, we observe slightly declining population densities and increasing land and population in areas captured only by census definitions or low built-up densities, constrained by the geography of place. Nevertheless, deriving urban proxies from satellite-derived built-up areas is promising for future efforts to create spatio-temporally consistent measures for urban land to guide urban demographic change analysis.

The National School Lunch Program’s (NSLP) original goal was to help students in need, but policy changes in the past decade have made students from middle-income and upper-income families eligible for federally funded school meals. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), an expansion of the NSLP enacted in 2010, effectively created a federal entitlement to school meals for all children, regardless of income, in certain areas. With more and more students eligible for and partici- pating in the NSLP, more and more resources meant for students in need will be lost. If Washington wants to help students from low-income families, federal officials should repeal the CEP, and continue to use student-enrollment mechanisms, such as direct certification, to reduce errors in one of the nation’s most error-prone federal systems.

The tech industry, which provides information technology capabilities and support, made significant contributions to Utah’s economy in 2018. Tech companies supported one in seven Utah jobs and one-sixth of worker earnings in the state. This economic activity generated over $2.5 billion in tax revenue to help fund schools and government services. Tech companies employ a larger share of the workforce in Utah than nationwide. The industry’s generous pay, compared with other industries, attracts workers. Even with Utah’s strong wage growth in recent years, tech companies find labor costs in Utah well below the national average. Job growth in Utah’s tech industry has been remarkable compared with other industries and states. In addition to 118,600 Utah jobs in the tech industry itself, tech-related firms provided 50,100 jobs that overlapped with aerospace, defense, life sciences, and other industries. Another 43,800 employees worked in tech occupations for non-tech companies. Salt Lake and Utah counties provide most of Utah's tech jobs, but the industry creates economic opportunity throughout the state. Going forward, homegrown and transplant tech innovators leverage decades of private and public investments in Utah's tech sector.

Recent advances in disease mapping allow for the simultaneous evaluation of space-time dynamics of diseases and the drivers of such dynamics, which are useful for designing public health campaigns and surveillance systems. This study determined the space-time patterns of spotted fever group rickettsioses (SFR), a group of tick-borne Rickettsial diseases widely prevalent in the U.S, and further evaluated the associations of socio-economic and environmental (land cover, climate) factors with SFR. County-level SFR cases reported to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment between years 2013 – 2018 and publicly available covariate data were used in a Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework to quantify trends and associations. The results show a steady increase in space-time trend for SFR in Kansas, the spread of SFR to newer counties over the study period, and two clusters of high-risk areas in the southeast and northeastern parts of Kansas. The space-time pattern of SFR is influenced by poverty status, the number of older homes in a county, and higher relative humidity conditions. The relevance of these findings is discussed in the context of public health and climate change implications on health.

As the cost of college tuition has increased, policymakers and practitioners have begun to examine the proliferation of college promise programs (i.e., tuition-free grant programs) across the United States (Complete College America (CCA), 2018). College promise programs have long benefited underrepresented college students with regards to access, persistence, and success; however, some argue that tuition-free grant programs with credit hour and grade point average (GPA) requirements inadvertently benefit non-minority students, suggesting that state and local policies that financially support underserved groups vary in terms of design, implementation and outcomes (e.g., college completion, degree attainment) (Mishory, 2018b; Perna & Leigh, 2018a). The purpose of this paper is to determine what effect a statewide financial aid policy has on the academic outcomes of promise program recipients at two 4-year public research university, Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) and Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI). The study examines the implementation of and subsequent policy change to the early-commitment college promise program, Indiana Twenty-First Century Scholarship (TFCS) Program. Using administrative data of 129,327 observations representing 64,031 low-income students who enrolled between 2010 and 2017 from the Indiana Management Performance Hub (MPH) , this longitudinal study employs a quasi-experimental design (Difference-in-Differences, or DiD) to explore the relationship between the implementation of the Indiana Code . . .

Antibiotic resistant bacteria like community-onset methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CO-MRSA) have continued to cause infections in children at alarming rates and are associated with health disparities. Geospatial analyses of individual and area level data can enhance disease surveillance and identify socio-demographic and geographic indicators to explain CO-MRSA disease transmission patterns and risks. Methods: A case control epidemiology approach was undertaken to compare children with CO-MRSA to a noninfectious condition (unintentional traumatic brain injury (uTBI)). In order to better understand the impact of place based risks in developing these types of infections, data from electronic health records (EHR) were obtained from CO-MRSA cases and compared to EHR data from controls (uTBI). US Census data was used to determine area level data. Multi-level statistical models were performed using risk factors determined a priori and geospatial analyses were conducted and mapped. Results: From 2002–2010, 4,613 with CO-MRSA and 34,758 with uTBI were seen from two pediatric hospitals in Atlanta, Georgia. Hispanic children had reduced odds of infection; females and public health insurance were more likely to have CO-MRSA. Spatial analyses indicate significant ‘hot spots’ for CO-MRSA and the overall spatial cluster locations, differed between CO-MRSA cases and uTBI controls. Conclusions: Differences exist in race, age, and type of health insurance between CO-MRSA cases compared to noninfectious control group. Geographic clustering of cases is distinct from controls, suggesting placed based factors impact risk for CO-MRSA infection.

This article draws on 11 months of multisite ethnographic fieldwork and 103 interviews to investigate how teachers in school faculty of varying racial compositions form and use their social ties to secure professional, political, and emotional resources at work. Findings show that, in general, white teachers in the numerical minority in their schools secured all resource types through their same-race ties, while black teachers in the numerical minority secured primarily emotional resources from their same-race ties. Given these observed differences, the author shows how the form and use of the two minority groups’ social ties stem in large part from distinctive organizational practices. In turn, the tie differences can account for differences in social integration and resource access in the organization. The data allow for comparisons to patterns among majority groups.

Background Race and place intersect to produce location-based variation in disease distributions. We analyzed the geographic distribution of tuberculosis (TB) incidence in Michigan, USA to better understand the complex interplay between race and place, comparing patterns in Detroit, Wayne County and the state of Michigan as a whole. Methods Using cross-sectional TB surveillance data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, multivariable statistical models were developed to analyze the residence patterns of TB incidence from 2007 through 2012. Two-way interactions among the residence location and race of cases were assessed. Results Overall, Detroit residents experienced 58% greater TB incidence than residents of Wayne County or the state of Michigan. Racial inequalities were less pronounced in Detroit compared to both Wayne County and the state of Michigan. Blacks in Detroit had 2.01 times greater TB incidence than Whites, while this inequality was 3.62 times more in Wayne County and 8.72 greater in the state of Michigan. Conclusion Our results highlight how race and place interact to influence patterns of TB disease, and the ways in which this interaction is context dependent. TB elimination in the U.S. will require strategies that address the local social environment, as much as the physical environment.

La plupart des pays de l’OCDE accordent une très grande importance aux politiques liés à la famille et au travail en offrant aux employés des congés payés afin de s’occuper d’un membre de la famille que ce soit un nouveau-né, un nouvel enfant adoptif ou un individu malade. Les États-Unis est le seul pays de l’OCDE n’ayant pas de lois fédérales garantissant les mêmes droits aux employés. En 1993, les États-Unis ont promulgué une loi fédérale qui protège les employés contre la perte d’emploi s’ils s’absentent pour une durée maximale de 12 semaines afin de s’occuper d’un membre de la famille. La Californie est le 1er état aux États-Unis ayant eu l’initiative de promulguer la loi « Paid Family Leave » garantissant aux employés 6 semaines de congés payés. De ce fait, non seulement les plus aisés profiteront de la durée de congés permise, mais aussi les moins aisés puisqu’ils reçoivent maintenant une contrepartie monétaire. Le but de cette étude est donc de voir l’impact de cette nouvelle loi offrant six semaines payées à la femme afin de s’absenter pour s’occuper de son nouveau-né sur le développement cognitif, ambulatoire, et de l’autonomie des enfants nés en Californie âgés de 5 à 7 ans suite à l’imposition de cette loi. Après la présentation de la littérature empirique ainsi que la contribution à cette littérature, la base de données sera mise en évidence. La stratégie empirique utilisée est la méthode de Différence-En-Différence. Les résultats de la Différence-En-Différence montrent une réduction de 0,4 point de pourcentage des problèmes ambulatoires et de 0,3 point de pourcentage des problèmes d’autonomie et aucun effet sur les problèmes cognitifs. L’effet de ce traitement n’est pas entrainé uniquement par les plus discriminés aux États-Unis comme le prouve la documentation précédente.

Iowa College Aid’s motto is “College Changes Everything.” With that motto in mind, this report documents postsecondary education’s value to the state of Iowa by focusing on how individuals benefit from continuing their education beyond high school and how society benefits from an educated citizenry.

This fact sheet explores insurance rate changes associated with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid expansion for rural and urban people with and without disabilities. • Following the implementation of the ACA, rural people with disabilities had the greatest gains in insurance coverage. • Rural people with disabilities in Medicaid expansion states saw a 10.7% increase in insurance coverage, compared to a 5.3% increase for those in non-expansion states. • The loss of the ACA and Medicaid expansion could hurt rural people with disabilities more than their urban counterparts, or those without disabilities.

Objective To determine the association of Medicaid expansion with health insurance coverage by marital status and sex. Methods A population-based, quasi-experimental policy analysis was undertaken of the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion provision on or after January 1, 2014. The 2010–16 American Community Survey provided data on 3,874,432 Medicaid-eligible adults aged 19–64 with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. The outcome measures were no health insurance coverage and Medicaid coverage. The predictor variables were marital status and sex, with controls for family size, poverty status, race/ethnicity, education, employment status, immigration status, and metropolitan residence. Results In 2016, the uninsured rate for married men and women in a Medicaid expansion state was 21.2% and 17.1%, respectively, compared to 37.4% for married men and 35.8% for married women in a non-expansion state. The Medicaid coverage rate grew between 14.8% to 19.3% in Medicaid expansion states, which contrasts with less than a 5% growth in non-expansion states. Triple differences analysis suggests that, for women of all age groups, Medicaid expansion resulted in a 1.6 percentage point lower uninsured rate for married women compared to unmarried women. For men, there was not a statistically significant difference in the uninsured rate for married compared to unmarried men. For women of all age groups, there was a 2.6 percentage point higher Medicaid coverage rate for married compared to unmarried women. For men, there was a 1.8 percentage point higher Medicaid coverage rate for married compared to unmarried men. Conclusion Medicaid expansion under the ACA differentially lowered uninsurance and improved Medicaid coverage for married persons, especially married women, more than unmarried persons.

Possible Explanations of the "Asian Enigma" (Ramalingaswami et al., 1996; Headey et al., 2012) Women’s status, sanitation, and urbanization (Smith et al., 2003) Genetic differences or long term consequences of past undernutrition (Klasen, 2008) Eldest son preference (Jayachandran & Pande, 2017) Research Question: Considering emerging trends in the past ten years, does parental preference for eldest sons still drive the health outcomes of Indian children?