This paper reexamines the relation between minimum wages and labor market outcomes for teenagers in the US. Economic theory suggests that real minimum wages drive labor market outcomes. Instead of the commonly used nominal minimum wages, we therefore use real minimum wages to examine this relation. Increasing real minimum wages are associated with a reduction in teen employment and working hours. The correlation with real hourly wages of teenagers is positive. These results are robust to the choice of the control group, whether we compare labor market outcomes in the respective state to all other states or to spatially close states, only. This strongly suggests that interpreting nominal minimum wage changes as minimum wage shocks is not a valid identification strategy.

We study the link between individual propensity to violate moral principles and demand for finance based on two datasets – the World Values Survey and a dataset with the legal records of U.S. CEOs. We find that individuals who are more tolerant of moral principle violations are more likely to borrow. Corporate executives with legal records are also associated with larger mortgages. Reverse causality and attitudes towards risk are unlikely explanations of our findings. We contend that non-compliance relaxes participation constraints in capital markets by lowering the psychological costs of entering and breaking a contract.

Background and Aims: Liver cancer (LC) is highly fatal and the most rapidly increasing cancer in the United States (US), where the leading cause is chronic hepatitis C (HCV) infection, particularly prevalent among the 1945-1965 birth cohort, the so-called “baby boomers”. Focusing on this cohort-etiology link, we aim to characterize LC patterns for 15 unique US populations: White, African American, Mexican Immigrant, Mexican American, Cuban and Chinese, among others. Methods: Individual-level mortality data from 2012-2016 from the health departments of three large states - California, Florida, New York - were pooled to compute LC mortality rates for each racial/ethnic group and for two birth cohorts of interest: “1945-1965 cohort” and “older cohort”. Results: LC is a major cause of cancer death among all US male groups and the leading cause in Mexican American men. White, African American, Mexican American, and Puerto Rican males had over 50% of their age-adjusted LC mortality coming from the 1945-1965 birth cohort. In contrast, foreign-born male and all female populations had higher LC mortality originating from the older cohort. Internationally, US White male baby boomers had 49% higher LC mortality than their counterparts in Europe (MRR:1.49; 95%CI: 1.43-1.56). Conclusions: Populations burdened disproportionately by LC in the 1945-1965 cohort include US-born males who share one common phenomenon: presence in the US during the 1960s-1990s when significant HCV transmission took place; these will benefit most from HCV screening and treatment. For the others, including all women, Asian subgroups, and especially burgeoning Hispanic immigrant populations, comprehensive LC prevention efforts will require detailed study of the distribution of LC etiology, including HCV, but also NAFLD, alcoholic liver disease, etc.

We use large-scale federal survey data linked to administrative death records to investigate the relationship between Medicaid enrollment and mortality. Our analysis compares changes in mortality for near-elderly adults in states with and without Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions. We identify adults most likely to benefit using survey information on socioeconomic and citizenship status, and public program participation. We find a 0.132 percentage point decline in annual mortality, a 9.4 percent reduction over the sample mean, associated with Medicaid expansion for this population. The effect is driven by a reduction in disease-related deaths and grows over time. We find no evidence of differential pre-treatment trends in outcomes and no effects among placebo groups.

This paper studies the effect of oil wealth on the provision of education in the early 20th century United States. Using information on the location and discovery of major oil fields, I find that oil wealth increased local revenue and education spending. However, population increased, and as consequence, schooling quality did not improve across the board. Nominal teacher wages increased, and oil-rich counties were more likely to participate in the Rosenwald school building program for blacks. However, neither student-teacher ratios nor school attendance rates improved in the wake of oil discoveries.

We confront two seemingly-contradictory observations about the US labor market: the rate at which workers change employers has declined since the 1980s, yet there is a commonly expressed view that long-term employment relationships are more difficult to attain. We reconcile these observations by examining how employment tenure has changed throughout the tenure distribution and for various demographic groups. We show that the fraction of workers with short tenure (less than a year) has been falling since the 1980s, while the fraction of workers with long tenure (20 years or more) has been rising modestly. The increase in long tenure reflects a rise in long tenure for women and the ageing of the population. Long tenure has declined notably among older men; this trend may have spurred popular perceptions that long-term employment is less common than in the past. The decline in long-tenure for men appears due to an increase in mid-career separations that reduce the likelihood of reaching long-tenure, rather than an increase in late-career separations. Nevertheless, survey evidence indicates that these changes in employment relationships are not associated with heightened concerns about job insecurity or decreases in job satisfaction as reported by workers. The decline in short-tenure is widespread, associated with fewer workers cycling among briefly-held jobs, and coincides with an increase in perceived job security among short tenure workers.

We examine US and Canadian local labor markets from 1990 to 2011 using comparable household and business data. Wage levels and inequality rise with city population in both countries, albeit less in Canada. Neither country saw wage levels converge despite contrasting migration patterns from/to high-wage areas. Local labor demand shifts raise nominal wages similarly, although in Canada they attract immigrant and highly skilled workers more while raising housing costs less. Chinese import competition had a weaker negative impact on manufacturing employment in Canada. These results are consistent with Canada’s more redistributive transfer system and larger, more educated immigrant workforce.

We examine impacts of market integration on the development of American manufacturing, as railroads expanded through the latter half of the 19th century. Using new county-by-industry data from the Census of Manufactures, we estimate substantial impacts on manufacturing productivity from relative increases in county market access as railroads expanded. In particular, the railroads increased economic activity in marginally productive counties. Allowing for the presence of factor misallocation generates much larger aggregate economic gains from the railroads than previous estimates. Our estimates highlight how broadly-used infrastructure or technologies can have much larger economic impacts when there are inefficiencies in the economy.

As rents have risen and wages have not kept pace, housing affordability in the United States has declined over the last 15 years, impacting the housing and living arrangements of low-income families. Housing subsidies improve the housing situations of low-income families, but less than one in four eligible families receive a voucher. In this article, we analyze whether one of the largest anti-poverty programs in the United States—the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—affects the housing (eviction, homelessness, and affordability) and living arrangements (doubling up, number of people in the household, and crowding) of low-income families. Using the Current Population Survey, the American Community Survey/decennial census, and the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we employ a parameterized difference-in-differences strategy to examine whether policy-induced expansions to the EITC affect the housing and living arrangements of single mothers. Results suggest that a $1,000 increase in the EITC improves housing by reducing housing cost burdens, but it has no effect on eviction or homelessness. Increases in the EITC also reduce doubling up (living with additional, nonnuclear family adults)—in particular, doubling up in someone else’s home—and reduce three-generation/multigenerational coresidence, suggesting that mothers have a preference to live independently. We find weak evidence for a reduction in overall household size, yet the EITC does reduce household crowding. Although the EITC is not an explicit housing policy, expansions to the EITC are generally linked with improved housing outcomes for single mothers and their children.

An individual's initial experiences with a common good, such as gasoline, can shape their behavior for decades. We first show that the 1979 oil crisis had a persistent negative effect on the likelihood that individuals that came of driving age during this time drove to work in the year 2000 (i.e., in their mid 30s). The effect is stronger for those with lower incomes and those in cities. Combining data on many cohorts, we then show that large increases in gasoline prices between the ages of 15 and 18 significantly reduce both (i) the likelihood of driving a private automobile to work and (ii) total annual vehicle miles traveled later in life, while also increasing public transit use. Differences in driver license age requirements generate additional variation in the formative window. These effects cannot be explained by contemporaneous income and do not appear to be only due to increased costs from delayed driving skill acquisition. Instead, they seem to reflect the formation of preferences for driving or persistent changes in the perceived costs of driving.

With the concept of the gendered demographic dividend, I suggest that the demographic transition may erode patriarchal family systems through the rise of sonless families. With fertility decline, the proportion of families with children of only one gender naturally increases. If the proportion of families without sons becomes sizeable, large numbers of families would not be able to maintain patriarchal practices and patriarchal family systems may weaken. I examine some of these theorized dynamics in India. First, I demonstrate that the proportion of families that are sonless did grow in recent decades as fertility declined. While the percentage sonless only reached 10% in India as a whole in 2015, this figure approached 20% in southern states with earlier fertility declines. I then assess whether children’s gender influences mothers’ expectations of old age support using panel data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS). I examine changes within women over time, comparing women’s expectations after they had children to earlier expectations when they did not yet have children. I find a substantial effect of children’s gender on mothers’ expectations. Women who went on to have sons kept or further embraced patriarchal expectations that a son would provide old age support. Expectations of women with only daughters differed profoundly. These sonless mothers largely gave up patriarchal expectations, with roughly equal numbers turning to their daughters and the rest turning away from children altogether as a source of support.

Medicare and Medicaid are U.S. Federal health insurance programs established in 1965 as an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935. They provide coverage to the aged population (65+), low-income individuals, and to other subsets of the U.S. population. After reviewing the foundations of Medicare/Medicaid, I analyze the political economy of Members’ of Congress vote choices on the original 1965 Medicare/Medicaid law. I find evidence that the number of doctors per 100,000 individuals in a state is a strong predictor of vote choice and there is statistically significant interaction between percentage of Black Americans and the South. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that party alignment of constituencies and geographic region played roles in persuading Republicans in party-contested states to defect. The behavior of these defectors is dependent on their party alignment and the party alignment of the majority in Congress. To assess the strength of the model across time and legislation, I run a fully interacted, pooled OLS regression on both the 1965 legislation, and the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. I find the effects of hospitals do not hold across time. However, I find evidence target populations remain insignificant in both datasets, suggesting they are not strong influencers of vote choice.

We examine local labor markets in the U.S. and Canada from 1990 to 2011 using comparable household and business data. Wage levels and inequality rise with city population in both countries, albeit less in Canada. Neither country saw wage levels converge despite contrasting migration patterns from/to high-wage areas. Local labor demand shifts raise nominal wages similarly, although in Canada they attract immigrant and highly-skilled workers more, while raising housing costs less. Chinese import competition had a weaker negative impact on manufacturing employment in Canada. These results are consistent with Canada's more redistributive transfer system and larger, more-educated immigrant workforce.

There is evidence that people with a higher income tend to have better overall social, physical, and economic well-being. However, poverty is multidimensional and means more than just a lack of money and income (UNDP 2009; Potter et al. 2012). The differential effects of economic poverty, such as malnutrition and exposure to environmental pollutants, have variable effects on human growth and development depending on the conditions to which individuals and populations are subject. Understanding how the long-term consequences of food scarcity and pollution will affect the human body in its entirety will better contribute to understanding social harms. As such, detailed descriptive statistics and multivariate linear regression were used to analyze skeletal and documentary data from the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Collection and the Coimbra Identified Skeletal Collection, with the goal of addressing the impacts of racism, poverty, and chronic stress on growth and development. Specifically, this study used Ecofeminist theory to look at why racism and poverty in the Terry Collection has a very different impact than poverty in the Coimbra Collection.

The theoretical literature argues that labor markets outcomes are affected by real minimum wages. Real minimum wages, however, co-move with the business cycle; their correlation with labor market outcomes should therefore not be interpreted causally. We employ structural vector autoregression to distinguish between endogenous variation in real minimum wages, e.g. due to changes in the stance of the business cycle, and exogenous shocks. Impulse responses show that in the US, real minimum wage shocks increased teen wages and lowered employment and working hours of teenagers.

Intersectional feminist scholars emphasize how overlapping systems of oppression structure gender inequality, but in focusing on the gendered, classed, and racialized bases of stratification, many often overlook disability as an important social category in determining economic outcomes. This is a significant omission given that disability severely limits opportunities and contributes to cumulative disadvantage. We draw from feminist disability and intersectional theories to account for how disability intersects with gender, race, and education to produce economic insecurity. The findings from our analyses of 2015 American Community Survey data provide strong empirical support for hierarchies of disadvantage, where women and racial minority groups with disabilities and less education experience the highest poverty levels, report the lowest total income, and have a greater reliance on sources outside the labor market for economic security. By taking disability into account, our study demonstrates how these multiple characteristics lead to overlapping oppressions that become embedded and reproduced within the larger social structure.

In recent decades, income divergence between the richest and poorest states in the United States has occurred, contradicting the prediction of neoclassical theory that income growth rates should converge over time. This article places neoclassical theory in dialogue with alternative bodies of literature: financialization, world cities, and uneven development. Using Mississippi and Connecticut as cases, a decomposition shows income divergence between these two states has been caused by two phenomena related to financialization: a growing geographic concentration of the highest-income households, and an increasing share of income claimed by these households.

College affirmative action programs seek to expand socioeconomic opportunities for underrepresented minorities. Between 1996 and 2013, 9 US states—including California, Texas, and Michigan—banned race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Because economic opportunity is known to motivate health behavior, banning affirmative action policies may have important adverse spillover effects on health risk behaviors. We used a quasi-experimental research design to evaluate the association between college affirmative action bans and health risk behaviors among underrepresented minority (Black, Hispanic, and Native American) adolescents. In this study, we found evidence that some health risk behaviors increased among underrepresented minority adolescents after exposure to state-level college affirmative action bans. These findings suggest that social policies that shift socioeconomic opportunities could have meaningful population health consequences.

Has technological progress in manufacturing been skill-biased or deskilling? This column argues that the conventional distinction between white-collar and production workers has concealed substantial deskilling among manufacturing production workers since the 1950s. Automation has reduced the demand for skilled craftsmen around the world, thereby reducing the number of jobs in which workers with little formal education could acquire significant marketable skills

This paper investigates how beliefs of the destination country’s population in social mobility may influence the location choice of high-skilled migrants. We pool macro data from the IAB brain drain dataset with population survey data from the ISSP for the period 1987-2010 to identify the effect of public beliefs in social mobility on the share of high-skilled immigrants (stocks) in the main OECD immigration countries. The empirical results suggest that countries with higher “American Dream” beliefs, i.e., with stronger beliefs that climbing the social ladder can be realized by own hard work, attracted a higher proportion of high-skilled immigrants over time. This pattern even holds against the fact that existing social mobility in these countries is relatively lower.