This study looks at human capital in Spain during the early stages of modern economic growth. In order to do so, we have assembled a new dataset on ageheaping and literacy in Spain for both men and women between 1877 and 1930 based on six population censuses with information for 49 provinces. Our results show that age-heaping was less prevalent during the second half of the 19th century than previously thought and did not decrease until the early twentieth century. By contrast, literacy increased throughout the whole period. Interestingly, age-heaping and illiteracy rates depict similar spatial patterns which confirm the stark differences in human capital within Spain. Lastly, we raise critical questions as regards sources, methods, and the interpretation of age-heaping. JEL Codes: I25, N9, O15, N01, I21.

Despite broad progress in closing many dimensions of the gender gap around the globe, recent research has shown that traditional gender roles can still exert a large influence on female labor force participation, even in developed economies. This paper empirically analyzes the role of culture in determining the labor market engagement of women within the context of collective models of household decision making. In particular, we use the epidemiological approach to study the relationship between gender in language and labor market participation among married female immigrants to the U.S. We show that the presence of gender in language can act as a marker for culturally acquired gender roles and that these roles are important determinants of household labor allocations. Female immigrants who speak a language with sex-based grammatical rules exhibit lower labor force participation, hours worked, and weeks worked. Our strategy of isolating one component of culture reveals that roughly two thirds of this relationship can be explained by correlated cultural factors, including the role of bargaining power in the household, and the impact of ethnic enclaves and that at most one third is potentially explained by language having a causal impact.

This paper investigates the causal impact of immigration on the likelihood of entry and exit of entrepreneurs among U.S.-born individuals. Using Current Population Survey data from the U.S. Census over the 2000-2016 period, I find that immigration had a negative effect on entry of native entrepreneurs, while having no impact on their exit. Exploring heterogeneity across individuals, I find that immigration had a negative and statistically significant effect on both entry and exit of female entrepreneurs, but has no effects on male entrepreneurs. Specifically, a 10-percent increase in the share of immigrants in the population lowers the entry and exit rates of female entrepreneurs by 10 percent and 5 percent, respectively, relative to the sample mean. Estimates imply that the net effect of immigration on female entrepreneurship is negative, but economically small. JEL Classification: F22, J15, J16, J24, J61, L26; Tel: (225)578-3790. I thank Ozkan Eren, Peter Gingeleskie, Doug McMillin, and Naci Mocan for their comments and suggestions.

Migrants do not only affect the societies in which they arrive. When people leave in large numbers, their absence will also have indirect consequences for the societies from which they left. Between 1860 and 1930, 1.4 million Swedes emigrated abroad, most of them settling in the United States. In this essay I look at how this historic migration episode, in which a quarter of the population left the country, affected the political outcomes in Sweden. I link emigration records, election data and population censuses for 2363 municipal- ities observed over 8 general elections between 1911 to 1928. I show that municipalities with more emigration saw larger relative gains for left-wing parties in subsequent elec- tions. Looking at migrant selection, I find evidence that municipalities with more emigra- tion turned relatively more collectivistic, lending some support to the hypothesis that part of the left-wing gain can be explained as a consequence of ideological selection of emigrants.

In the first paper of my dissertation I document that industries with low offshoring potential have 7.31% higher stock returns per year compared to industries with high offshoring potential, suggesting that the possibility to offshore affects industry risk. This risk premium is concentrated in manufacturing industries that are exposed to foreign import competition. Put differently, the option to offshore effectively serves as insurance against import competition. A two-country general equilibrium dynamic trade model in which firms have the option to offshore rationalizes the return patterns uncovered in the data: industries with low offshoring potential carry a risk premium that is increasing in foreign import penetration. Within the model, the offshoring channel is economically important and lowers industry risk up to one-third. I find that an increase in trade barriers is associated with a drop in asset prices of model firms. The model thus suggests that the loss in benefits from offshoring outweighs the benefits from lower import competition. Importantly, the model prediction that offshorability is negatively correlated with profit volatility is strongly supported by the data. In the second paper (co-authored with Andrea Tamoni and Alex Hsu) we study the impact of fiscal policy shocks on bond risk premia. Government spending level shocks generate positive covariance between marginal utility and inflation (term structure level effect) making nominal bonds a poor hedge against consumption risk leading to positive inflation risk premia. Volatility shocks to spending have strong slope effect (steepening) on the yield curve, producing positive nominal term premia. For level and volatility shocks to capital income tax, term structure level effects dominate, delivering negative risk premia. Fluctuations in term premia are entirely driven by volatility shocks. Lastly, fiscal shocks are amplified at the zero lower bound. The third paper (co-authored with Andrea Tamoni and Alex Hsu) discusses how risk aversion (RA) affects the macroeconomic response to uncertainty shocks. In the data, heightened level of RA during the 2008 crisis amplified the decline of output and investment by roughly 21% and 16%, respectively, at the trough of the recession. The degree of RA determines the impact of second moment shocks in DSGE models featuring stochastic volatility. Ceteris paribus, higher RA leads to stronger responses of macroeconomic variables to uncertainty shocks, making un certainty shocks as economically significant as level shocks. Conversely, elevated RA can amplify or dampen responses to level shocks depending on whether RA exaggerates or attenuates consumption growth expectations.

In the first stage of the life cycle, children depend on parents’ care and financial support. As children grow older, they start new families, get married and have their own children. During adulthood, they can divorce/separate, become widowed or remarry. Finally, during old age, individuals may decide to live alone or reside with their adult children and other relatives until death. However, these phases are not fixed, and neither is the time spent in each one of them. In the last decades, there have been changes in both the duration and the age distribution of the different types of coresidence in Brazil, and we still have a lot to learn about this process. Therefore, the primary objective of this thesis is to look at the duration of coresidence of an average person in Brazil with different types of relatives over their life cycle. We are particularly interested in measuring how coresidence has changed between 1960 and 2010, a period of intense transformations in the country (demographic and non-demographic). Also, we examine in more detail the coresidence with own mother. We measure not only the extent to which the actual agesex profiles of this type of coresidence have changed in the last fifty years, but disentangle the two main factors responsible for these changes: the availability of mothers and the propensity of children to reside with them. For this purpose, we draw data from 1960, 1970, 1980, 1991, 2000 and 2010 Brazilian population census, as well from 1993, 2003 and 2013 PNADs (a nationally representative Brazilian household survey). We calculate the mean duration of residence with own mother, father, spouse, children, other relatives and any relatives by using a method based on the works of Wolfbein (1949) and Sullivan (1971).

The populations in the Deep South, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, experience disparities in social determinants of health, limited access to healthcare and overall poorer health compared to residents of other states in the country. The 11 states that constitute the Deep South have become increasingly culturally diverse in recent decades. Data limitations on the health needs of socially disadvantaged groups constitute a barrier for identifying and addressing health inequities. Appropriate data collection and community participation strategies are needed to ensure identification of health disparities and equitable distribution of program benefits. Suggested strategies include collecting information on key population descriptors associated with socially disadvantaged groups (e.g., detailed race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability status, language and nativity) and information on social determinants of health (e.g., education, income, housing quality). Strategies also include implementing recruitment and data collection methods that ensure participation by diverse communities (e.g., providing language access to non-English speakers and oversampling certain population groups). Finally, providing opportunities for equitable participation of socially disadvantaged groups in program design, implementation and evaluation is important. Those strategies are based on strong ethical and technical rationales and would support the goal of achieving health equity and wellbeing for all in the Deep South and across the country.

Background Few studies have explored the relationship between air pollution and fertility. We used a natural experiment in California when coal and oil power plants retired to estimate associations with nearby fertility rates. Methods We used a difference-in-differences negative binomial model on the incident rate ratio scale to analyze the change in annual fertility rates among California mothers living within 0-5 km and 5-10 km of 8 retired power plants between 2001 and 2011. The difference-in-differences method isolates the portion of the pre-versus post-retirement contrast in the 0-5 km and 5-10 km bins, respectively, that is due to retirement rather than secular trends. We controlled for secular trends with mothers living 10-20 km away. Adjusted models included fixed effects for power plant, proportion Hispanic, Black, high school educated, and aged > 30 years mothers, and neighborhood poverty and educational attainment. Results Analyses included 58,909 live births. In adjusted models, we estimated that after power plant retirement annual fertility rates per 1000 women aged 15–44 years increased by 8 births within 5 km and 2 births within 5-10 km of power plants, corresponding to incident rate ratios of 1.2 (95% CI: 1.1–1.4) and 1.1 (95% CI: 1.0–1.2), respectively. We implemented a negative exposure control by randomly selecting power plants that did not retire and repeating our analysis with those locations using the retirement dates from original 8 power plants. There was no association, suggesting that statewide temporal trends may not account for results. Conclusions Fertility rates among nearby populations appeared to increase after coal and oil power plant retirements. Our study design limited the possibility that our findings resulted from temporal trends or changes in population composition. These results require confirmation in other populations, given known methodological limitations of ecologic study designs.

Objectives Asian Americans are the fastest-growing minority group in the United States, yet little is known about their functional mobility. To overcome such a gap, this study examined the association between demographic/economic characteristics and functional limitations for middle-aged and older Asian Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos. Method This study utilized microdata from the National Health Interview Survey pooled sample (2010–2016 IPUMS NHIS with a sample size of 6,767 Asians). Logit regressions were used to examine factors associated with functional limitations. Measures include age, gender, currently married, education (categorized as less than high school, high school, some college, college, advanced degree), birth and citizenship status, household income, home ownership, types of health insurance (e.g., Medicaid, Medicare, private), and geographic region (i.e., Northeast, Midwest, South, and West). Results Chinese (odds ratio [OR] 0.57, p < .01) and Filipinos (OR 0.74, p < .05) had lower odds for any functional limitations relative to Asian Indians. Currently married and individuals with a higher income were also associated with reduced odds for limitations in the overall analysis. As for the subgroup analysis, there was a positive association between age and the presence of any functional limitations for Asian Indians (OR 1.05, p < .01), Chinese (OR 1.08, p < .01), and Filipinos (OR 1.03, p < .01). In terms of gender, Asian Indian men were less likely (OR 0.51, p < .01), whereas Filipino men were more likely to have limitations (OR 1.09, p < .05). Discussion Asian Indians appeared to have a poorer health profile for limitations in dressing, eating, walking, or working when compared with Chinese and Filipinos. A pronounced difference at older ages was also apparent for Asian Indians by gender and the likelihood of having any limitations increased much faster for Asian Indian women. For Chinese, there was a dramatic increase in functional limitations after age 75 (particularly for women) and the predicted probability for this subgroup approximated 20%. For Filipinos, men were more likely to have limitations. These findings raise interesting questions about the on-set of disability by age and gender for Asian subgroups.

Using data from the 1996–2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the 2009–2016 American Community Survey, we examine trends in U.S. children living in shared households (living with adults beyond their nuclear (parent/parent’s partner/sibling) family). We find that although the share of children who lived in a shared household increased over this period, the rise was nearly entirely driven by an increase in three-generation/multigenerational households (coresident grandparent(s), parent(s), and child). In 1996, 5.7 % of children lived in a three-generation household; by 2016, 9.8 % did likewise—more than a 4 percentage point increase. More economically advantaged groups (older, more educated mothers, married households) experienced the largest percentage increase in three-generation coresidence, although correlates of coresidence remained largely stable. Decomposition analyses suggest that the rise in Social Security receipt and changes in parental relationship status (less marriage, more single parenthood) most strongly explained the increase in three-generation households. Given the dramatic rise in three-generation households, more research is needed to understand the consequences of these living arrangements for children, their parents, and their grandparents.

Vegetation is a key component of any urban ecosystem and, as such, it is involved in the regulation of various biogeochemical cycles, e.g., water, carbon, nitrogen (Bianchi, 2019). Partly or completely urban (a.k.a. green space) land is covered with grass, trees, shrubs, or other vegetation. However, green space is not always equally distributed across socioeconomics within cities (Byrne et al., 2009; McConnachie & Shackleton, 2010). Research has shown that this is a particular problem for shrinking cities (Burkholder, 2012; Nassauer & Raskin, 2014). Therefore, research on the changing patterns of urban vegetation and its relationship with population trends in cities and other demographic characteristics warrants further research. The term shrinking city usually describes a densely populated urban area that has faced a population loss in large parts and is undergoing economic transformation with some symptoms of a structural crisis (Hollander, et al., 2009). Apparent phenomena in shrinking cities are a large amount of vacant lands and abandoned properties across the entire urban area...

Introduction: This study examines trends regarding health insurance coverage in the United States along lines of sex, race/ethnicity, place of birth, and poverty status between 2009 and 2015. Methods: This study uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public User Microdata Series) for the years 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015. These datasets were downloaded from the IPUMS USA website hosted by the University of Minnesota. The variables used in the study describe these populations in terms of sex, the four major race/ethnic groups (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Latino, and Asian), being born either within the United States or abroad, and being either above or below the poverty line. The key distinctions within concern those in the “having no health insurance” and “having at least some health insurance” categories. Results: Across all metrics, the percentage of uninsured individuals decreased between 2009 and 2015. Some slight percentage increases in uninsured occurred between 2009 and 2011. In many cases, the greatest percentage decreases in uninsured took place between 2013 and 2015. Across all metrics, the percentage of uninsured individuals decreased between 2009 and 2015. Some slight percentage increases in uninsured occurred between 2009 and 2011. In many cases, the greatest percentage decreases in uninsured took place between 2013 and 2015. Discussion: While these findings indicate a largely positive trend for the first decade after the Great Recession and for the first year after enactment of the American Affordable Care Act, further study is required before the causative factors can be stated with any certainty. Readers interested in exploring the causative factors are recommended to the Conclusion of this report for a discussion of the directions in which further research should be carried.

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of the minimum wage on annual earnings inequality in the United States over the last three and a half decades. We focus on men between the ages of 25 and 61, and use administrative Social Security earnings records from 1981-2015 from the U.S. Social Security Administration to measure annual earnings. The paper found that: • Increases in the minimum wage reduce inequality below about the 12th percentile of the annual earnings distribution. • The increases are slightly larger than the impacts of the minimum wage on the bottom part of the hourly wage distribution, as measured in the CPS Outgoing Rotation Groups. • But they are not statistically larger, given the precision of the estimation, and they are larger than impacts on annual earnings in the March CPS, consistent with measurement error in CPS annual earnings. The policy implications of the findings are: • A typical increase in the minimum wage implies a 13.2 percent increase in annual earnings for minimum-wage workers at the bottom of the annual earnings distribution. • This results in a 1.85 percent reduction in inequality in the bottom tail of the annual earnings distribution. • The minimum wage is an important policy tool to decrease annual earnings inequality.

At the Copake Iron Works Historic Site in upstate New York, a plaque carries an enduring lesson about what is now called affordable housing: “[T]his building is a two-family dwelling.… Multiple-family dwellings were less expensive to build and heat. In an era before the automobile, having employee housing near the work place was important to assure a reliable and available work force.”1 Today, the goal of encouraging affordable housing near jobs is more relevant than ever—especially for those parts of the U.S., such as Silicon Valley, where the economy is strong, inexpensive housing is scarce, commutes are long, and employers worry about their longterm ability to attract the workforce that they need. “We need homes that working families can afford,”2 says Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which comprises nearly 400 area business leaders concerned about their firms’ ability to attract and retain workers of all types. Reducing the cost of housing in expensive regions requires a large increase in supply. But in most cities, regulations limit new construction to peripheral sprawl and downtown high-rises. In the . . .

Through collaboration with student-researchers from Hartnell College, we have produced deliverables that we hope will meet the interests and needs of local nonprofits, educators, and city officials. We hope our research will contribute to the complex narrative of socioeconomic and race relations and urban development in Salinas. Ultimately, we hope that our research will uncover useful lessons in the history of Salinas and suggest areas of focus, both geographic and political, in which to improve social equity in the city today.

This article examines changes in concentrated poverty in the rural United States between 2000 and 2012. Using data from the decennial census and American Community Survey, we address three main objectives. First, we document changes in the number and share of counties with poverty rates above 20, 30, and 40 percent, stratifying our sample by metropolitan status. Second, we use exploratory spatial methods to identify geographic patterns in county-level poverty dynamics between 2000 and 2012. Third, we estimate the share of the population living in high-poverty counties, and track changes over time and by race and poverty status. Overall, we find a substantial increase in concentrated poverty since 2000. Increases in both the number of high-poverty counties and the share of the population living in these counties were widespread, though spatially and temporally uneven in some cases. We also observe convergence in concentrated poverty between rural and micropolitan areas, and between non-Hispanic white and Hispanic populations. Overall, we observe a reversal of the declines in concentrated poverty that occurred in the 1990s, and find that in many cases this trend began prior to the Great Recession.

Patterns of occupation segregation may be due in part to preferences for working with one’s own gender. In this paper, I use structural estimation and instrumental variables to estimate firms’ willingness-to-pay for male and female workers separately from worker preferences for occupation attributes and occupation gender composition. I separately estimate firm and worker preferences by modeling lifetime wages as transfers in a one-to-one matching model of the labor market. Using the estimated distribution of reservation wages I am able to disentangle male and female preferences for wages, gender composition, and exogenous occupation attributes using a shift-share instrumental variables strategy, which exploits variation in occupation exposure to industries, male and female labor force participation, and estimated firm willingness to pay. I then use these estimates to predict which occupations have stable and unstable gender composition. I find that with some notable exceptions in STEM fields, which will continue to feminize, and machine operators, which will masculinize, the current segregation patterns are stable, and not historically dependent. If all occupations were at parity in 1960, current observed segregation would be similar to today.

What explains the development of repressive employer coordination? Classic historical American business and labor literature focuses on institutions of labor repression and employer associations, but little systematic examination of such associations exists, particularly during the interwar period. Similarly, recent political science literature on the origins of industrial institutions underemphasizes the importance of repressive employer associations. I use new quantitative subnational evidence from the U.S. interwar period, with data from the open-shop movement in the United States at the local level after World War I. I test a variety of families of hypotheses regarding variation in repressive employer coordination, with specific data measuring the threat posed by organized labor. I find that such threats posed by unions are correlated to repressive employer associations. The results have implications for understanding local-level variation in the business repression of labor movements in the early twentieth century and contribute to our understanding of labor repressive institutions and the incentives of firms to collectively act.

Introduction: This report examines the Mexican origin population in New York City in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. Methods: This report is based on US Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Series (PUMS) data for 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 organized and released by IPUMS USA at the Minnesota Population Center of the University of Minnesota. The author is very thankful to Averi Giudicessi for providing research support and editorial assistance to complete this report. Results: The Big Apple’s Mexican origin population increased consistently from approximately 195,000 in 2000 to 376,000 in 2015. Mexicans retained their position as the third largest Latino/a national subgroup in the City during these fifteen years. Domestic-born Mexicans are generally younger and more equally distributed by sex, whereas foreign-born Mexicans tend to be older with more men than women. The volume and share of Mexicans in the City who were US Naturalized Citizens more than doubled from 13,000 in 2000 to 30,000 in 2015. Meanwhile, the percentage of Mexicans who were not U.S. Citizens (i.e. those who could be Legal Permanent Residents, visa holders, and people with other immigrant status, including those unauthorized or undocumented) decreased significantly, from 60% to approximately 40%. Discussion: Keeping in mind the groundbreaking work by Michael Piore from almost four decades ago, in which he highlighted the relevance of the US-based employers requiring immigrant workers, and therefore questioning the simple model of “push” and “pull” factors (i.e. supply and demand) in the study of labor migration, the estimates of this report show the gradual settlement of the Mexican immigrant population in New York City. Further data and research are required to understand how different immigrant groups and generations could be transforming from unexpected sojourners, or Birds of Passage engaged on transnational migration, into de facto residents, workers and parents raising American citizens

This study investigated the dynamics of utility affected by urban flooding in New Orleans. Disasters occurring in an urban area affect urban growth. However, the impact on urban utility change has been rarely investigated. Utility defined as a net benefit of a resident living in an area is measured with earnings subtracting housing and commuting costs. This study applied regression models to test the relationship between urban flooding and urban utility, simulating multiple scenarios to split the total effect into flood effect and recovery effect. Using American Community Surveys’ microdata between 2001 and 2016 collected from IPUMS USA, two hypotheses could be tested: urban utility decreased by urban flooding while increased by recovery activities. With additional in-depth analyses, various policy implications useful for planning are suggested. Firstly, New Orleans becomes a less livable city from utility perspectives. The utility increase is significantly smaller in New Orleans (5.6%) than the rest of Louisiana (10.3%) between 2005 and 2016 mainly because rent price increased relatively high in the city. Secondly, a disaster prevention policy could have not only been cost-effective but also led New Orleans to be a more livable place. Lastly, government support positively affected urban utility. For example, the Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 could contribute to one percent increase in urban utility of New Orleans. Therefore, policy makers and stakeholders will be informed of the change in urban utility associated with disasters by adopting various quantitative approaches provided from this study, which is especially important in the era that global climate change increases disaster risk and vulnerability.