Does past migration matter for economic development in the long-term? Does an area’s history in migration affect economic performance long after the initial migration shock has faded away? And – does it matter what type of immigrant settles in a territory for the economic impact of migration to persist in time? This dissertation examines the long-term economic impact of migration, connecting migrant settlement patterns at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century to present day levels of income per capita. It firstly estimates the effect of different compositional features of the historical migrant stock on long-term economic development levels in the United States (US), a country founded and essentially formed by migrants. Secondly, it tests whether there is a link between past European and recent Latin American migration to the US to identify whether one potential transmission mechanism could be at play in transferring the migrants’ economic impact across time. The results of the analyses conducted using a variety of methods – OLS, IV, and panel data estimation techniques – provide three novel insights. Firstly, historical migrant stock is one of the very few historical county features that still explain current levels of development. In contrast to other factors, such as past income and education levels or industry structure, the influence of past migration on economic development does not seem to fade over the very long-term. Secondly, compositional aspects related to the historical migrant stock remain highly decisive for economic development outcomes more than 100 years later. The diversity of the migrant population, the gender balance, as well as the average distance travelled by the migrant stock over a century earlier still influence regional economic development levels today. All three features have growth-enhancing implications over the short as well as over the long-term. Lastly, past migration – irrespective of the presence of family connections, ethnic ties, or migration networks – shapes the geographical patterns of successive migration waves spanning multiple decades and even generations. An area’s migration history acts as a crucial pull factor for future migrants and is at the root of the formation of migration-prone and migration-averse regions. Consequently, previous migration contributes to ‘rework’ the places of destination, making them more attractive for future generations of migrants. All in all, the findings show that migration not only matters for economic development, but that its economic influence determines the success and prosperity of territories and the well-being of their inhabitants over the very long-term.

Movie production incentives (MPI) are a popular economic development strategy employed by US states. Film subsidies are intended to encourage external investment into a nascent industry that spills over onto complementary industries to generate economic growth through a multiplier. Despite their widespread use, the positive impact of MPIs on state economies has not been documented, and several states have halted their MPI programs due to high costs and questionable efficacy. This study exploits the staggered implementation, suspension, and elimination of film incentive programs across states to estimate the macroeconomic impact of MPIs. Instrumental variable estimates that permit causal inference do not support the hypothesized positive impacts of film incentives on state economies. JEL codes: H25, H71, L82, R11, R38, Z11, Z18

Background: Female physicians are more likely than male physicians to make professional adjustments to accommodate household responsibilities, such as childrearing (1). Although differences in marriage characteristics between male and female physicians may partly explain this finding, national data on characteristics of physician marriages are lacking (2). For example, spouses of female physicians may on average work more hours outside the home than spouses of male physicians, which would place relatively greater pressure on female physicians to adjust their professional responsibilities for household work. Methods: We performed analyses using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) obtained between 2000 and 2015 (3). The ACS is an annual, nationally representative, U.S. Census–administered survey of approximately 3 million households. The survey is collected by mail, telephone, and personal-visit interviews. Response rates range from 90% to 98% (4). The Harvard Institutional Review Board waived study review. We compared self-reported occupation, personal income, hours worked outside the home, and graduate education status between spouses of male versus female physicians. Occupation was categorized as physician or surgeon, nurse, other health care professional (dentist, pharmacist, or health care executive), or other. We also compared the number of children in couples with a male physician only, female physician only, and 2 physicians. Differences in means for categorical and continuous variables were assessed with chi-square and t tests, respectively. Specialty was unavailable. Income was self-reported. We analyzed physicians aged 25 to 50 years to focus on ages when most childbearing and marriage decisions are made. Same-sex couples were excluded because of our focus on sex differences within couples; this excluded 71 couples, leaving 42 903 couples in our sample. Dollar values were normalized to 2015 dollars using the Consumer Price Index. We used ACS-provided weights to make our estimates nationally representative and the complex survey modules in Stata, version 14.2 (StataCorp), to account for the ACS's complex survey design. Results: Our sample comprised 30 898 male physicians and 17 625 female physicians. Among male physicians, 17.1% were married to female physicians, 8.0% to nurses, and 3.3% to other health care professionals (Table 1). In contrast, 31.4% of female physicians were married to male physicians, 0.6% to nurses, and 2.4% to other health care professionals. These patterns were stable over the study period.

We determined relationships between food behaviors and health-risk factors by ac- culturation among limited-income Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women. Methods: Women aged 18-49 years were recruited from income-based programs in metro-Phoenix, Arizona. Self- administered surveys in English or Spanish included demographics, a 10-item food behavior checklist, health-risk factors, food security, and acculturation. Di erences by 4 acculturation/ ethnicity categories were assessed with chi-square and analysis of variance (ANOVA). We created a food behavior scale. Results: Eighty-two percent self-identi ed as Hispanic (N = 358), with 45% Hispanic-dominant, 25% bicultural, 12% English-dominant, and 18% non-Hispanic white for ac- culturation status. Food behavior checklist results showed that English-dominant Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women were more likely to feed their children soon after waking, refriger- ate meat/dairy promptly, not add salt to food, smoke cigarettes and be food insecure (p < .001). Education, not acculturation, was a signi cant predictor of the food behavior scale. BMI did not di er by acculturation, but 33% of Hispanic-dominant Latinas did not know their height and/or weight. These less acculturated Latinas had signi cantly greater food security, but lacked health insurance and years of education. Conclusions: Program outreach tailored by acculturation that considers educational level is needed to emphasize existing positive behaviors and address knowledge gaps among low socioeconomic women to improve health and reduce disparities.

In the two hundred years since the first federal census of the United States in 1790, the population of the United States increased from about 4 million to almost 309 million persons in 2010. This was predominantly due to natural increase, early driven by high birth rates and moderate mortality levels and later (after the Civil War) by declining death rates. In addition, over 76 million recorded legal immigrant arrivals (1819-2010) increased the growth rate. By the two decades prior to World War I, about one-third of the total increase originated in net migration, which has also been true since 1980. A number of unusual features characterized the American demographic transition. The fertility transition was early (dating from at least 1800) and from very high levels . . .

The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. fell to its lowest level in more than a decade, according to new Pew Research Center estimates based on 2016 government data. The decline is due almost entirely to a sharp decrease in the number of Mexicans entering the country without authorization. But the Mexican border remains a pathway for entry by growing numbers of unauthorized immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Because of them, Central America was the only birth region accounting for more U.S. unauthorized immigrants in 2016 than in 2007.

Has the emergence of information technology changed the structure of employment and earnings in the US? We propose a new index of occupation-level IT intensity and document several long-term changes in the occupational landscape over the past decades. Using Census and US KLEMS micro-data, we show that: (i) the bulk of productivity growth after 1950 is concentrated in IT intensive sectors; (ii) the share of workers in IT jobs has expanded significantly, with little or no pause and IT jobs enjoy a large and growing earnings premium, even after controlling for general task requirements (e.g., cognitive, non-routine); and (iii) the rise of the IT intensive employment share is closely associated with declines in the manufacturing employment share. While earnings premia for college-educated and cognitive/non-routine workers have flattened in the aggregate since 2000, we show that they continued growing in IT intensive jobs and that these jobs have played a key role in accounting for the surge of high tech service labor productivity. We also use our IT intensity index to estimate industry-specific elasticities of substitution between IT and non-IT intensive labor, finding values of 1.6 in manufacturing and 1.3 in services. Finally, we revisit a long-standing question about the relationship between technological progress and productivity and provide evidence that occupation-level IT intensity is positively associated with output growth, especially in the services sector.

Commuting comes with costs, in terms of money, the opportunity cost of time, emotional burdens, and danger. Yet Americans take on considerably longer commutes than are strictly necessary. This suggests that longer commutes must have benefits, or that many people who take on long commutes are not maximizing their utility. This research seeks evidence for compensation for longer-duration commuting. It finds four possible sources. First, longer commutes are associated with higher wages. Second, longer commutes are associated with higher rates of homeownership, possibly in part because they facilitate suburban living. Third, long commutes may benefit spouses, since marriage is associated with longer commutes, although there is no association between commute duration and the presence of children in the household. Fourth, spouses of those with longer commutes are less likely to work, which appears to be due in part to higher wages for the worker. However, there is no evidence that a longer commute is associated with higher wages for the commuter’s spouse when the spouse works. Longer commute trips are not associated with poorer mood during the trip, but also are not associated with more emotionally fulfilling work. Finally, commute duration is not associated with life satisfaction, perhaps because the net benefits and costs of commutes are roughly equal across varying commute durations, or because the burdens and benefits of the commute are not strong enough to impact as broad a construct as life satisfaction. The absence of an association between well-being and commute duration suggests that people are doing a reasonable job of maximizing their utility when selecting home and work locations.

Using US Census data for 1990-2000, we estimate effects of NAFTA on US wages, focusing on differences by gender. We find that NAFTA tariff reductions are associated with substantially reduced wage growth for married blue-collar women, much larger than the effect for other demographic groups. We investigate several possible explanations for this finding. It is not explained by differential sensitivity of female-dominated occupations to trade shocks, or by household bargaining that makes married women workers less able to change their industry of employment than other workers. We find some support for an explanation based on an equilibrium theory of selective non-participation in the labor market, whereby some of the higher-wage married women workers in their industry drop out of the labor market in response to their industry's loss of tariff. However, this does not fully explain the findings so we are left with a puzzle.

Despite employing only 11 percent of all workers and 15 percent of male workers today, manufacturing industries are at the center of most discussions of how to grow the American economy. This is because, in the minds of many, the economy is about producing things, which leads to other economic activities—advertising, researching, transporting goods to market, and retailing. Also, just 50 years ago manufacturing industries employed 36 percent of male workers. Given that the 1950s and 1960s were prosperous, many people tie the explosive growth of the middle class after World War II to the relatively high wages of male manufacturing workers.

During its two-hundred-year history, the United States has become an urban nation. Workers and firms flowed to cities following urban-biased productivity shocks, including the new manufacturing technologies of the first and second industrial revolution and, more recently, the advent of computerization. In addition, workers were drawn to cities by improvements in the quality of urban life, especially in public health. Seminal work in urban economics by Rosen (1978) and Roback (1982) suggests that the urban wage and rental premia can be used to disentangle these competing explanations for urban growth. Novel wage and rent series for urban and rural areas back to 1820 (wages) and to 1918 (rents) show that the urban wage premium in the United States was remarkably stable over the past two centuries, ranging between 15 and 40 percent . . .

The chapters illustrate dynamics of the choices of individuals and households when facing income and time constraints in the recent United States. In the first chapter, grandparent childcare provision is studied from the supply side with a focus on the effect of the 2008 recession. Findings suggest differing effects for lower income respondents, and female respondents. In the second essay, I test a structural consumption model building on Brown (2007) and extending into recent periods using newly available data. Results suggest that Minskian effects are present in consumption in the U.S. Lastly, I test a new relative poverty measure against the more traditional form and study its relation to electoral outcomes from 2000-2016. Results suggest that state-level relative poverty decreases the likelihood of Republican victories. All of these aspects investigate the relationship between the social and the economic in the modern U.S.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. institutions of higher education began to address long-standing patterns of exclusion. Initial efforts to improve the access of black students to engineering education focused on six historically black engineering colleges, and evolved into a truly nationwide movement. Later, a larger group of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) expanded educational opportunities in engineering, computer science and other technical fields, "to prepare their students for expanded career choices." Geographic and institutional features of the higher education infrastructure led to differential impacts of these policies on students born in different states. A data panel assembled for the project links changes in educational opportunities to current outcomes. The panel includes more than 30 years of complete counts of the number of bachelor's degrees conferred in each field by each U.S. institution of higher education (collected by the U.S. Department of Education and the Engineering Manpower Commission), merged to current labor force data. These data facilitate description of the geography and timing of changes in opportunities for black college students to choose engineering or computer science college majors, and current labor market outcomes among those born in the right place and time to pursue careers in these fields.

The purpose of this study was to discover what relationships, if any, existed between job satisfaction, job training satisfaction, and perceived organizational support—the variables of interest. There is additional attention in the relationships that may exist between the variables of interest and control variables such as occupational status, participant age, participant’s educational attainment, and gender of full-time staff employees working at Penn State University at University Park. If there are relationships between the variables, what are those relationships, and how are they affected by the control variables? Of particular interest was occupational status of the participant and their level within the organization.

Analysis of properties of the global trade network has generated new insights into the patterns of economic development across countries. The Economic Complexity Index (ECI), in particular, has been successful at explaining cross-country differences in GDP/capita and economic growth. The ECI aims to infer information about countries productive capabilities by making relative comparisons across countries’ export baskets. However, there has been some confusion about how the ECI works: previous studies compared the ECI to the number of exports that a country has revealed comparative advantage in (‘diversity’) and to eigenvector centrality. We show that the ECI is, in fact, equivalent to a spectral clustering algorithm, which partitions a similarity graph into two parts. When applied to country-export data, the ECI represents a ranking of countries that places countries with similar exports close together in the ordering. More generally, the ECI is a dimension reduction tool, which gives the optimal one-dimensional ordering that minimizes the distance between nodes in a similarity graph. We discuss this new interpretation of the ECI with reference to the economic development literature. Finally, we illustrate stark differences between the ECI and diversity with two empirical examples based on regional data.

A large recent empirical literature has identified a strong relationship between foreign trade competition from China and a number of economic and social maladies. Decades prior, many of these same maladies became prevalent in black communities, including declining employment, labor force participation and marriage rates, and increases in drug addiction through the crack cocaine epidemic, reversing economic gains made by Black Americans since the Civil Rights Movement. These losses were concurrent with a rapid rise in foreign trade competition from Japan. We assess the impact of this trade competition on racial disparities using variation in commuting zone level exposure. We find that foreign competition from Japan led to a decrease in black manufacturing employment, labor force participation and median incomes, and increases in public assistance recipiency. However we find these losses in manufacturing were offset by increased manufacturing employment among whites. These shifts in the racial composition of employment appear to be caused by skill upgrading in the manufacturing sector. We also find evidence that trade exposure played a role in the suburbanization of manufacturing jobs and the movement of whites out of the urban core.

The Civil War was the deadliest war in American History. It is widely regarded by historians as a pivotal turning point in the history of the United States. Economic historians have been reluctant to join the debates over the causes and impact of the war. “Except for those with an interest in the economics of war,” wrote Ross Robertson in his 1955 textbook, A History of the American Economy, the four years of conflict [1861-1865] has had little attraction for the economic historians.” His textbook presents an analysis of the development of the American economy that stops at 1860 and then picks up the story in 1865 with the comment that “persistent, fundamental forces were at work to forge the economic system and not even the catastrophe of internecine strife could greatly affect the outcome” (Robertson 1955, 245-247).

Several controversies emerged recently following a series of corporate inversions designed to minimize corporate tax liabilities. Moreover, secular stagnation and ever-decreasing levels of corporate tax collections by federal and state jurisdictions in the U.S contributed to the resurgence of a widespread interest in tax reform. To reduce corporate tax evasion and promote economic growth, policymakers passed the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" in 2017 which substantially reduced the corporate income tax rate. The opportunity of the reform remains a controversial debate across the political spectrum. ...

This longitudinal study examined the labor market of South Dakota, a state with an exceptionally low unemployment rate, over the ten years spanning 2006 to 2015. Analysis focused on the questions, what proportion of the market is made up of low wage jobs? and are the numbers of low wage workers increasing or decreasing over time? Data collected by the U. S. Census Bureau and U. S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was dissected on a micro level to determine which occupations held disproportionate numbers of low paying jobs. A threshold for households to live free of subsidies was set, then compared to workers’ incomes. Detailed data mining revealed information that contributes to the literature of employment and labor fields, strategic economic development, and the role of public policy in helping citizens get and stay independent of subsidies.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the literature on the impact of Complete Streets policies on individual well-being so that policy-makers can fully understand the outcomes of the polices they adopt. For the purposes of this paper, well-being is defined as work-life balance, income, social capital, and health outcomes. The empirical strategy, using fixed effects and difference-in-differences approaches to analyze American Community Survey and National Complete Streets Coalition data, attempts to show how Complete Streets policies and projects affect well-being outcomes including income and wage, usual hours worked per week, travel time to work, spousal relationship, and self-care difficulty in the past six months. The results of the Complete Streets policy analysis at the city-level were insignificant while the Complete Streets project analysis results at the community-level were generally significant. These results indicate that Complete Streets projects may have an impact on the well-being of individuals. This thesis provides evidence that policy-makers should consider the impact of Complete Streets on individuals during the policy deliberation process and confirms the need for further academic research on this topic.