Data documentation in psychology lags behind not only many other disciplines, but also basic standards of usefulness. Psychological scientists often prefer to invest the time and effort that would be necessary to document existing data well in other duties, such as writing and collecting more data. Codebooks therefore tend to be unstandardized and stored in proprietary formats, and they are rarely properly indexed in search engines. This means that rich data sets are sometimes used only once—by their creators—and left to disappear into oblivion. Even if they can find an existing data set, researchers are unlikely to publish analyses based on it if they cannot be confident that they understand it well enough. My codebook package makes it easier to generate rich metadata in human- and machine-readable codebooks. It uses metadata from existing sources and automates some tedious tasks, such as documenting psychological scales and reliabilities, summarizing descriptive statistics, and identifying patterns of missingness. The codebook R package and Web app make it possible to generate a rich codebook in a few minutes and just three clicks. Over time, its use could lead to psychological data becoming findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable, thereby reducing research waste and benefiting both its users and the scientific community as a whole.

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) refers the idea that all people should be able to use any health services they require without incurring financial hardship. It is a concept that the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations have been promoting in recent times as an essential health system goal and mechanism for sustainable development. Few low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have implemented UHC. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) of Ghana is one of the few examples and, as such, provides a unique opportunity to understand how UHC reforms may be designed and implemented to achieve the goals of UHC in LMICs.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, immigration settlement patterns have started to shift and regions of the US that do not have a long history of sustaining immigration growth are now considered popular immigrant destinations. These changes have implications to various aspects of society including health. We use the Current Population Survey (CPS) to examine the differences of self-reported health of 213,192 foreign born-individuals across 8 types of immigrant destinations. We find that immigrants living in non-traditional immigrant destinations report better health than immigrants living in historical immigrant destinations. This calls to question whether immigration theories regarding the welfare of immigrant populations in historical immigrant destinations downplay the health benefits that may arise from living in new immigrant destinations. The next step of this project is to examine whether community variation in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removals might explain community variation in immigrant health. Introduction:

How are changes in the low-wage labor market affecting the mobility of workers out of low-wage work? I investigate changes in the wage mobility of workers starting employment spells in low wages using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1968 to 2014 and discrete-time event history analysis. About half of all low-wage workers move to better wages within four years. Effects on mobility rates are significant by age, gender, race, education, occupation, and job characteristics. Mobility rates out of low-wage work have declined since the late 1990s. Little progress has been made in closing the gaps in mobility for women and nonwhites over time. I find evidence for the decline of firm internal labor markets and lower mobility for part-time workers over time.

Over the course of six months, the study team collected and analyzed data from almost 200 new construction affordable housing projects that were completed in Oregon during the past two decades. The efforts of the study team were guided by the leaders of Oregon’s Housing and Community Services (OHCS) Department. The affordable housing developments analyzed represent a very diverse set of projects that span the state and provide housing to varied types of residents, including single individuals, large families, and seniors. The analysis employed widely accepted statistical techniques to identify factors that are correlated with raising or lowering the costs of developing affordable housing in Oregon

In a recent article Stefano Fenoaltea (2018) bemoaned the loss of respect and focus on the importance of creating databases, or “measurement” as he referred to it. Cliometrics has made and continues to make valuable contributions not just to the field of economic history, but economics in general. In particular, we focus on the contribution of cliometrics to the creation of datasets. We highlight several important cases in both the past and present, of recognized important contributions of new datasets to the economics discipline. We argue that Clio has continually focused on, and valued, the creation of new data sets and the clever and novel ways they have been exploited to further the frontiers of knowledge, and that these efforts are both appreciated and recognized.

A key demographic hypothesis has been that fertility declines rely on stopping at target parities, but emerging evidence suggests that women frequently reduce fertility without specific numeric targets. To assess ther elative importance of these two paths to fertility decline, we develop a novel mixture model to estimate:(1) the proportion of women who stop at a target parity; and (2) mean completed fertility among those who do not. Applied to Demographic and Health Survey data from women aged 45–49 in 84 low- and middle-income countries, and to United States Census cohorts, the model shows considerable variation in the proportion stopping at specific parities (1–84 per cent). The estimates also show that declines incompleted fertility are largely attributable to women who do not stop at target parities, suggesting that stopping at ideal parities may be less important than parity-independent decisions for a wide range of fertility transitions.

In 1981, Cambridge, Massachusetts, became the first school district in America to replace its neighborhood schools with a “controlled choice” assignment plan, which considered parental preference and racial balance. This article considers the history preceding this decision to explore how and why some Americans became enamored with choice-based assignment at the expense of the neighborhood school in the late twentieth century. It argues that Cambridge's problematic experience with open enrollment in the 1960s and 1970s created a vocal, consumer-oriented, and politically active class of parents who became accustomed to choice and, by the early 1980s, dependent on its benefits. Moreover, controlled choice proved especially attractive in this university community because Cambridge had a constituency of well-educated, middle-income parents who possessed the social capital to identify the best educational opportunities for their children, but lacked the economic capital to use real estate to gain access to their preferred schools.

In this article, we ask where affluent and economically insecure households reside. We examine the economic conditions of the tails of wage distributions in local areas to make sense of trends in geographical residence. Using census and American Community Survey data covering 1950 to 2015, we draw two main conclusions. From 2000 onward, economic polarization coincided with two kinds of geographic residential patterns: polarized and poor labor markets. We also find divergence in the link between geographical location and wages across the wage distribution. We question whether the concentration of affluent and poor households in polarized places signify moves to better economic opportunity by low-wage workers. Our results illustrate the geographical consequences of low-wage rent destruction and highlight implications for future work addressing geographical stratification.

A monetized tornado benefit model is developed for arbitrary weather radar network configurations. Geospatial regression analyses indicate that improvement in two key radar coverage parameters—fraction of vertical space observed and cross-range horizontal resolution—lead to better tornado warning performance as characterized by tornado detection probability and false alarm ratio. Previous experimental results showing faster volume scan rates yielding greater warning performance, including increased lead times, are also incorporated into the model. Enhanced tornado warning performance, in turn, reduces casualty rates. In combination, then, it is clearly established that better and faster radar observations reduce tornado casualty rates. Furthermore, lower false alarm ratios save cost by cutting down on people’s time lost while taking shelter.

My thesis focuses on occupation-specific human capital investment and occupational mobility. The first chapter of my thesis investigates gender disparities in early-career wage returns to firm tenure, occupational tenure, industry tenure, and general labor market experience. I show that the relative importance of various types of tenure differs across genders: occupational tenure matters more than industry tenure in men’s wages, while industry tenure matters more than occupational tenure for women. Averaging across all occupations, early-career wage growth associated with occupational tenure is substantially higher for men than women. I then explore the underlying reasons for gender disparities in wage growth with occupational tenure. I show that gender differences in hours of work and occupational choice partially explain the gender gap in tenure returns, but I find no evidence that gender differences in human capital investment in education prior to labor market entry contribute to the gap. Given the evidence that occupational changes tend to improve occupational match quality, the observed higher occupational mobility of men relative to women may also explain the gender gap in wage growth with occupational tenure. The second chapter examines whether negative housing equity affects homeowners’ occupational mobility. Homeowners with negative equity face stricter constraints and relatively higher occupational mobility cost than renters and homeowners who are not “underwater" which might potentially limit their ability to change occupations. I don’t find any strong evidence that negative equity affects homeowners’ occupational mobility in either recourse or non-recourse states. The third chapter examines the extent to which shifts in occupational structure explain the upward trend in occupational mobility during the period of 1968-1997. I find that shifts in occupational composition can partially explain the rising occupational mobility trend for less educated young workers and more educated workers. An approximate 10-20% reduction in the estimated mobility trend when occupation is controlled for implies that occupational composition generally shifted to less stable occupations. In addition, when negative occupational employment shocks are controlled for, workers in most age-education subgroups exhibit higher increases in occupational mobility.

This paper examines the roles of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and employer spousal coverage made possible by same-sex marriage in increasing health insurance coverage for same-sex couples in the United States. I use data from the American Community Survey in a difference-in-differences model on same-sex couples in ACA Medicaid expansion states to determine if people who did not have access to legal same-sex marriage at the time of the ACA had larger gains in insurance coverage postACA than those who already had access to marriage. I find a 1.8pp larger increase in Medicaid coverage and a 3.5pp larger increase in overall coverage for states that had not passed same-sex marriage before the main ACA implementation. These differences are the combined effects of the initial differential response to the ACA and the subsequent direct response to same-sex marriage passage in the post period. When I directly control for same-sex marriage passage, I find a 2.8pp larger increase in Medicaid and suggestive evidence for increased crowd-out of employer coverage in states without access to same-sex marriage at the time of the public insurance expansion.

This paper provides the first evidence of the effect of a U.S. paid maternity leave policy on the long-run outcomes of children. I exploit variation in access to paid leave that was created by long-standing state differences in short-term disability insurance coverage and the staggered enactment of laws that banned discrimination against pregnant workers in the 1960s and 1970s. While the availability of these benefits sparked a substantial expansion of leave-taking by new mothers, it also came with a cost. I find the enactment of paid leave led to shifts in labor supply and demand that decreased wages and family income among women of child-bearing age. In addition, the first generation of children born to mothers with access to maternity leave benefits were 1.9 percent less likely to attend college and 3.1 percent less likely to earn a four-year college degree.

Sleep duration predicts health and mortality, and, all else equal, people who wake up earlier sleep less. Prior studies have examined which activities help determine wake time, but little research has analyzed social variation in the relationship of wake time to these activities. Given gender differences in social expectations and sociodemographic characteristics surrounding work and family, the present study investigates whether the relationship of wake time to employment and childcare schedules differs by gender. Using data from the 2003-2016 years of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I find that earlier employment start times are associated with earlier wake times, but somewhat less so for women than men. I do not find significant gender differences in the association between childcare start time and wake time. These findings highlight the importance of considering social differences in how employment schedules shape sleep timing.

This chartbook illustrates the characteristics of the county’s 65-plus population in 2015*, and changes that have occurred since 2000. It also includes population characteristics, such as education, income level, and marital status, that are shown to be associated with the need for long-term services and supports. There are charts that compare the older population of the county to the state as a whole, and charts that illustrate change over time within the county. The data presented in this chartbook are intended to assist planners, decisions makers, and service providers to understand the growth in numbers and proportion of older adults, particularly those who will likely need assistance. An online interactive data center is available for you to define your own topic, county, and population of interest to see current figures and change over time. Please visit www.ohio-population.org.

One in three 65-year-olds will require long-term care at some point in their lives. Medicaid covers approximately 60% of all long-term care expenses, but does not cover care received at home or in assisted living unless under a state waiver program. The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Balancing Incentives Program authorized over $3 billion to support Medicaid coverage of home and community based long-term care. A reduction in the elderly population living in nursing homes could have important implications for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Low-income elderly are eligible for SSI but receive substantially lower payments if living in a nursing home. This study investigates the question: What was the impact of the ACA’s Balancing Incentives Program on living arrangements of the financially vulnerable elderly and their receipt of SSI?

The labor market is characterized by a strong degree of sorting by gender into occupations and industries. Gender sorting implies that men and women are differentially exposed to changes in local labor demand. In this paper, I show that in the U.S. between 1980 and 2017, men have been more exposed to geographically concentrated changes in labor demand than women, and that men are exposed to these changes with higher variance and lower mean. I find that an aggregate labor demand analysis masks important heterogeneity by gender both in exposure and response to changes in gender-specific labor demand. I study differential responses to these shocks by gender, including migration and labor force participation. Migratory responses are greater for men, while labor supply responses are greater for women, and these effects are larger in rural areas. I provide a decomposition of the labor demand shocks to explore mechanisms, finding that industry sectors comprising most of the identifying variation of a shock vary by both gender and region of analysis.

On 4 October 1829, Leendert Wisse was born in Meliskerke, a small, rural town on the island of Walcheren in Zeeland. In many ways, Leendert’s life was unexceptional. He was a farmer’s son and he worked on his father’s farm until he got married to Neeltje Geschuren at age 23. Together with Neeltje, he moved to another small town on Walcheren – Ritthem – and went on to have 13 children, the last of whom was born when Leendert was 43. When the couple got older, they left their own farm and moved to Wissenkerke on Noord-Beveland, where their four youngest children lived. Here, Leendert and Neeltje grew old and eventually died of old age. In many ways, Leendert Wisse’s life is exemplary for those born in Zeeland in the first half of the 19th century. Like so many others, he stayed in the region where he was born and married, had multiple children, and worked in the same profession for most of his life. But, however ordinary the life course of Leendert Wisse might have been, his life span was exceptional. Leendert lived . . .

Zuwanderern wird häufig ein ausgeprägter Unternehmergeist zugeschrieben, der zu Wachstum und Innovation beiträgt. Zudem gilt die Selbstständigkeit als förderlich für die gesellschaftliche Integration und den wirtschaftlichen Erfolg der Migranten. Daher bieten viele Länder spezielle Visa für eindwanderungswillige Unternehmer an oder richten die Kriterien für eine Arbeitserlaubnis auf diese Zielgruppe aus. Die bisherigen wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse dämpfen jedoch allzu optimistische Erwartungen: Es fehlen überzeugende Belege dafür, dass die Selbstständigkeit geringqualifizierten Migranten tatsächlich zum wirtschaftlichen Aufstieg verhilft. Statt selbstständige Unternehmer gezielt zu fördern, sollte sich die Zuwanderungspolitik daher eher auf die Anwerbung hochqualifizierter Arbeitskräfte konzentrieren.

Studies on the nonprofit pay differential find that nonprofit workers in the child daycare industry earn more than comparable for-profit workers (Ben-Ner, Ren, & Paulson, 2011; Preston, 1988), whereas nonprofit lawyers earn less than lawyers in for-profit firms (Frank, 1996; Weisbrod, 1983). Are nonprofit daycare center workers less altruistic than for-profit daycare workers or nonprofit lawyers? What is the meaning of a positive or negative nonprofit pay differential from various studies? This dissertation reframes the sectoral pay differential question and examines whether there is a donative labor effect for nonprofit workers relative to the for-profit workers. Current empirical studies examining one or several industries produce a range of conflicting results, which makes comparison impossible and becomes a barrier to understanding the nature and magnitude of the nonprofit wage differential. Is there a relationship between industries and the sectoral pay differential? I develop measures to explain the relationship between the industry and the variability of the cross-sectoral pay differential based on the literature of commercialism on the industry level.