The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once observed that nothing is permanent, except change. Such classical wisdom is once again evident in a recent release of data from the National Center for Education Statistics on the college enrollment patterns of recent high school graduates. Since 1975, when recordkeeping began, a student’s chance of enrolling in college rose reliably with his family’s income. No longer. Low-income students now enroll in college at a higher rate than their middle-income peers.

Prior to 2010, young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 had the highest rates of uninsurance in America. The "Dependent Care Provision" of the Affordable Care Act sought to increase insurance rates among young adults by allowing them to stay on their parents' policy until age 26. We examine the human capital decisions young adults make once they have an option for health insurance outside of employer-sponsored health insurance. Using the American Community Survey from 2001 to 2016 and a difference-indifferences research design, we found that the implementation of the mandate was associated with a 3-5 percent increase in college enrollment among women 23-25 years of age. This result is robust to a variety of specifications. We did not find a consistent effect among men. Our results suggest that increased flexibility in health insurance markets has implications for human capital investment.

Florida’s diversity underscores the importance of issues informed by gender and race, such as income inequality, health care, reproductive justice, gun control, and voting rights restoration for felons. In the face of growing inequality, working women—especially women of color—and their families need policies that ensure economic security, prosperity, and reproductive health care access. Women need policies that reflect their roles as providers and caregivers. In Florida, mothers are the sole, primary, or co-breadwinners in 69.3 percent of families,1 and these numbers are higher for some women of color. The following policy recommendations can help support the economic security of women and families in Florida.

Rising housing costs for low and middle-income households in numerous U.S. metropolitan markets have sparked interest among academics and policymakers since the 1970s (Case 1994). This has contributed to a marked decline in the affordability of housing for low and middle-income households. Many regions have suffered from a persistent shortage in affordable housing, especially those on the East and West Coast (Glaeser and Gyourko 2002). The gap between the price of homes delivered by the market and the price deemed accessible to the average household has only gotten wider in these markets. For instance, the median home price surged 65% in San Francisco Bay Area, 62% in Boston, 54% in San Diego, and 49% in Denver between 1995 and 2002 (Quigley and Raphael, 2004). Nearly 50 percent of households residing in U.S. metro areas are costburdened renters or are spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, an estimated 12 million renter and homeowner households spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing...

We analyze the effect of the rise of knowledge-based activities on spatial inequality within U.S. cities, exploiting the network of patent citations to instrument for local trends in innovation. We find that innovation intensity is responsible for 20% of the overall in- crease in urban segregation between 1990 and 2010. This effect is mainly driven by the clustering of employment and residence of workers in knowledge-based occupations. We develop and estimate a spatial equilibrium model to quantify the contribution of productivity and residential externalities in explaining the observed patterns. Endogen- ous amenities account for two thirds of the overall effect. We illustrate the relevance of the model for policy analysis by studying the impact of four proposed projects for Amazon’s HQ2 on the structure of Chicago.

To the extent that the minimum wage can reduce income inequality through its wage contour effects and it affects the broader middle class, it may challenge some of the fundamental assumptions of the median voter theorem. Based on Anthony Downs’ (1957) model of political competition, the median voter theorem holds that as income distributions are skewed to the right, the preferred amount of redistribution is a function of the relative position of the median voter on the income scale. The greater the distance between the median voter’s income and society’s average income, the greater is society’s preferred amount of redistribution. The fundamental assumption being that redistribution will take place through taxation. Data from the Current Population Survey, however, shows that the minimum wage’s welfare effects potentially mitigate the need for redistribution because the distance between the median voter’s income and the average of society is effectively narrowed. In Chap. 3 we discovered that in years when the minimum wage increased inequality declined to some extent. In this chapter we take a closer look at the impact of the minimum wage on income distribution and how it impacts inequality. As a solution to growing inequality the minimum wage does not figure prominently in contemporary policy discussions; rather the discussion focuses on redistribution, which is also assumed by the median voter theorem. Most policy approaches to income inequality center on rates of taxation, on the assumption that income inequality can easily be addressed by overtaxing the wealthy in order to pay for programs that will benefit those at the bottom. Ideology aside, this approach follows the assumptions of the median voter theorem based on the public choice theory put forth by Anthony Downs (1957). Downs essentially postulated that political actors, including public officials, governments, and political parties behave rationally. So too do voters. Each pursues his or her self-interests. Voters vote for the candidate and/or party that will satisfy their interests. Because the goal of each political party is to win elections and not programs and/or policies, those running for election will effectively purchase the votes of voters through public programs and/or other policies that effectively increase their money utility. According to this model of political competition, the median voter theorem, based on the work of others using the same public choice assumptions as Downs, holds that as income distributions are skewed to the right, the preferred amount of redistribution is a function of the relative position of the median voter on the income scale. The greater the distance between the median voter’s income and society’s average income, the greater is the society’s preferred amount of redistribution. In other words, the more inequality there is, the greater preference the median voter has for redistribution. The fundamental assumption being that redistribution will take place through taxation. In this chapter, I argue that to the extent that the minimum wage can reduce income inequality (and not to be confused with making society equal) through its wage contour effects and it has positive effects for the middle class, it may challenge some of the fundamental assumptions of the median voter theorem. I argue that the minimum wage’s welfare effects potentially mitigate the need for society to redistribute because the distance between the median voter’s income and the average income of society is effectively narrowed, which is to say, if the money utility of those at the bottom can be increased through an increase in the minimum wage than simply overtaxing the wealthy.

The primary health insurance coverage reforms of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) began to take effect on January 1, 2014. Between 2013 and 2016, the most recent year of American Community Survey (ACS) data available, the share of nonelderly Americans aged 0 to 64 without health insurance fell from 17.0 percent to 10.0 percent, meaning 18.5 million more Americans with health insurance coverage during the first three years of ACA implementation. Virtually all of these gains are attributable to the ACA, as uninsurance had been predicted to be stable over this period without the ACA.1 Moreover, there were secular declines in employer-sponsored insurance between 2000 and 2013.2 Holding demographic, socioeconomic, and region characteristics constant, we . . .

Flavonoids are polyphenolic phytochemicals with health-promoting properties, yet knowledge about their intake in at-risk populations is limited. This study sought to estimate intakes of total flavonoids and six flavonoid classes in the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study; determine if differences in intakes exist by race (African American (AA) and White (W)) and income (< or >125% Federal poverty guidelines); and compare intakes to those of a nationally representative population with similar demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Data transformation normalized the flavonoid intake distributions prior to conducting statistical tests. With the exception of the flavanone class, flavonoid intakes of AAs were significantly lower than those of W (p < 0.01), regardless of other potential mediating factors including sex, age, and income. Total flavonoid intakes in HANDLS did not differ from intakes in the nationally representative study, but anthocyanidin and flavone intakes were lower, and race specific differences were found for several flavonoid classes. These findings imply that benefits attributable to flavonoid consumption may not be experienced equally by AAs and Whites, nor in vulnerable populations such as that represented by HANDLS relative to the U.S. population, and may play a role in observed health disparities.

Texas has become an increasingly hostile state for women, with policymakers insti- tuting burdensome restrictions on various forms of health care access and staying implementation of local paid sick days laws. Policymakers should instead prioritize policies, such as equal pay for equal work and paid leave, that will ensure the health and economic security of women and their families in Texas. Women need policies that reflect their roles as providers and caregivers. In Texas, mothers are the sole, primary, or co-breadwinners in 59.7 percent of families,1 and these numbers are higher for some women of color. The following policy recommen- dations can help support the economic security of women and families in Texas.

To understand the connections between the built environment and travel, we should examine how different travel behaviors change over time. Whether a household owns a car or not is one indicator that can show long-term changes in travel behavior. Historically, the percent of households without a car in the US has been declining as cars have become more affordable, and as cars have been the transportation option that provides the greatest freedom and accessibility to jobs and destinations. Until recently, increases in the proportion of households with no vehicles available corresponded to economic changes such as a recession as people could not afford to own cars. However, the percent of carless households has been declining at a slower rate across all urbanized areas and if we look at the trends in the top 20 urbanized areas in the United States we see the proportion of households without cars has remained relatively stable 3 at this aggregate level over time, but when we look at the individual cities we see some cases where there has been an increase in the proportion of households without cars by 2015. When we look at the spatial distribution of carless households we see they are concentrated in the central city as the mobility of this group requires reasonable access to other modes like walking, bicycling, transit or ride sharing. The built environment and services in the central city allow for greater mobility. By examining the characteristics of these households in the central cities of the top 20 urbanized study area we see a shift of the type of households that do not own cars. Carless households are not homogenous, and they are changing over time. We see trends of people with higher education and income and younger generations not owning cars at higher percentages than ever before. Examining these trends at different scales: national, in major cities, in central cities, in specific, individual cities and at the scale of the individual can help us distinguish the trends in the types of households in different places who are forgoing car ownership and help us to tease out the groups which forgo ownership by choice as opposed to economic constraint. This descriptive analysis can guide further exploration of these trends especially in further analyzing what factors are “pulling” households choosing to not own cars to certain cities and built environments. The future of this research includes utilizing these findings to further explore the relationship of the many possible factors that are affecting the location choices of carless households including the built environment characteristics of diversity, design, density, distance to transit, and 4 destinations. Establishing a comprehensive picture of the characteristics of these groups over time is the first step. Next, understanding the impact of the built environment factors on their location choice can help guide planning practice for designing cities that support a car-free lifestyle. As people living in cities in the US forgo buying a car, choosing instead to utilize other modes for trips, planners should ensure equitable access for these households to reach amenities, jobs, and services without a car. Further research into both long-term indicators of travel behavior like car ownership and shorter-term factors like mode choice for work and nonwork trips should be studied to understand the needs and choices of car-free households living in different built environments. Finally, we can mitigate future consequences of further CO2 emissions by designing cities that prioritize walking, bicycling, and transit, over automobiles, as these alternative modes are crucial in improving the built environment, health, relieving congestion, reducing parking needs, and more.

Først vil jeg takke Universitetet i Tromsø for å ha gitt oss studenter et stort handlerom med valg av problemstillinger. Det har vært en stor motivasjon i seg selv å få lov til å jobbe med et emne som jeg har fattet interesse for, etter flere år bundet til pensum og læreplaner. Jeg vil også gjerne takke følgende personer: Veileder Hilde Sommerseth som har viet meg mye tålmodighet, oppmuntring og veiledning slik at oppgaven kunne finne sin endelige form og veileder Gunnar Thorvaldsen som har viet mye kunnskap og kildehenvisninger til temaet mitt noe som gjorde prosessen å finne relevant litteratur langt enklere Jeg vil også takke Michael Drake, Espen Søbye, Per Pippin, Lars Ivar Hansen og alle vennene mine på lesesalen som har gitt meg veiledning og svar på en lang rekke spørsmål. Takk til Rune Sørland Monstad for å hjelpe meg med å forstå fagets matematikk, og til Fredrik Loholdt som har hjulpet meg med sykdomsforståelsen og biokjemien i faget. Jeg vil gi en stor takk til Vegard Hellan som har dedikert mange timer til å korrekturlesemasteroppgaven min, og for tålmodigheten du har vist under denne prosessen. Og sist men ikke minst. Mamma, pappa og søsteren min for beroligende samtaler og støtte, og samboeren min Kristian som har holdt ut å bo med meg i denne stressende og morsomme perioden. Jeg lover at jeg er tilbake til mitt gamle selv igjen.

We present a method for identification of models with good predictive performances in the family of Bayesian log-linear mixed mod- els with Dirichlet process random effects. Such a problem arises in many different applications; here we consider it in the context of disclosure risk estimation, an increasingly relevant issue raised by the increasing demand for data collected under a pledge of confidentiality. Two different criteria are proposed and jointly used via a two-stage selection procedure, in a M-open view. The first stage is devoted to identifying a path of search; then, at the second, a small number of nonparametric models is evaluated through an application-specific score based Bayesian information criterion. We test our method on a variety of contingency tables based on microdata samples from the US Census Bureau and the Italian National Security Administration, treated here as populations, and carefully discuss its features. This leads us to a journey around different forms and sources of bias along which we show that (i) while based on the so called “score+search” paradigm, our method is by construction well protected from the selection-induced bias, and (ii) models with good performances are invariably characterized by an extraordinarily simple structure of fixed effects. The complexity of model selection - a very challenging and difficult task in a strictly parametric con- text with large and sparse tables - is therefore significantly defused by our approach. An attractive collateral result of our analysis are fruitful new ideas about modeling in small area estimation problems, where interest is in total counts over cells with a small number of observations.

As in nearly every state and region in the United States, the healthcare sector has become an important driver of the local economy both within the Chicago region and throughout the state of Illinois. Across the long cycle of declining employment levels in traditional industries like manufacturing and the shorter cycles of recession and recovery since 2000, the health care sector has continued to add jobs. Hospital organizations continue to occupy the focal point of the health care system, but a mix of regulatory and cost-based pressures and incentives have driven a profound and uneven process of restructuring in the industry. Ownership has consolidated into multi-hospital systems even as care has decentralized outside of hospital walls. Some hospitals have closed or reduced services as others have expanded with sizable investments in construction, reorganization, and technology. In theory, hospitals have the potential to fill a crucial hole left by an increasingly bifurcated labor market. In practice, however, wages have been stagnant for many hospital workers despite increasing demand. This report focuses on workers in Illinois and the Chicago region who are employed in hospital services positions, defined here as healthcare support occupations, food preparation and service occupations, and cleaning and maintenance occupations.

This paper examines inequality in both leisure and consumption over the past four decades using time use surveys stretching from 1975 to 2016. We show that individual and family characteristics, especially when including work hours, explain most of the long run variation in leisure. We then use these characteristics to predict the distribution of leisure in the Consumer Expenditure Survey, a survey that also provides detailed information on consumption. The advantage of this approach is that it gives us measures of consumption and leisure at the family level within a single data source. We find that leisure time is highest for families at the bottom of the consumption distribution, and typically declines monotonically as consumption rises. However, the consumption-leisure gradient is small. We find noticeable differences across family types, with the gradient being largest for single parent families and single individuals and smallest for families with a head age 65 or older. Overall, these results indicate that including both leisure and consumption, as opposed to just consumption, in a measure of economic well-being will result in less inequality. However, because the consumption-leisure gradient is not very steep, the dampening effect of leisure on overall inequality is small.

. . . In recent decades, prices for stocks and bonds have risen well above their historical averages. Higher asset prices imply lower expected future asset returns, so workers who rely on historical asset returns to project optimal retirement savings are at risk of unexpected shortfalls . . .

This dissertation consists of three essays studying the occupational wages, skills, and gender wage gap in U.S. and other OECD countries. The analysis especially focuses on how the gender differences in skill levels and skill returns could explain the gender wage gaps and changes. The first chapter outlines the dissertation by briefly discussing the motivations, methods, and main findings in each of the following chapters. Chapter 2 focuses on the well-documented wage and employment polarizations in the U.S.. The occupations moving into the lower tail (“in” occupations) have more immigrant workers, more part-time workers, and less female workers. In addition, the wage gaps between domestic/immigrant, full-time/part-time, and male/female workers are also larger in “in” occupations. The opposite facts hold true in the occupations moving out of the lower tail (“out” occupations). Utilizing the regional differences, we also find stronger spillover effect from high-wage occupations to the “out” occupations than the effect to the “in” occupations. Chapter 3 investigates how gender differences in skills beyond education and experience can account for the observed gender wage gap and its changes between 1980 and 2015 by using data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). The main empirical finding is that female workers possess much higher level of caring skills, and the returns to caring skills are significantly negative but have increased over time, accounting for a major part of the persistent gender wage gap and the narrowing gender wage gap from 1980 to 2015. Another significant portion of the narrowed gender wage gap can be attributed to the faster growth in female workers’ average directness skills and the fact that the returns to directness skills are significantly positive and stable over time. In the last chapter, we document significant cross-country variation in gender wage gaps among OECD countries by using the data from Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). We find significant cross-country variation in the gender differences in returns. The gender differences in returns to basic labor and experience are the most important factors in explaining the gender wage gap. In addition, gender differences in returns to cognitive and directness skills are playing milder but substantial roles in explaining the wage gap. We also find the social institutions and attitudes indicators are related to the cross-country variation in gender differences.

Labour composition by gender, age, and education has undergone dramatic changes over the last half century in the United States. Furthermore, the volatility of total market hours differs systematically between genders, age, and education groups. Reduced form exercises and a large-scale business cycle model suggest that these demographic patterns account for between 14% and 31% of the observed changes in aggregate volatility over this period of time. Additionally, these demographic changes are responsible for a significant fraction of the GDP growth observed in the considered period of time.

We introduce coordination failures driven by beliefs regarding the presence of taste discriminators as a channel of discrimination in productive activities requiring the input of multiple agents. We show that discrimination can persist under perfectly observable ability, when taste for discrimination has died out, and under absence of discriminatory social norms. Empirically we analyze the market for self-employment—an activity commonly requiring inputs from multiple agents. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, beliefs about discrimination are a significant correlate of self-employment rates, as well as the cost and success of establishing productive relations for blacks in the US.

Sophisticated mid-twentieth-century food critics—those who ate where Chinese Americans ate and ordered the dishes Chinese Americans ordered—wrote disparagingly of the chop suey that middle America adored. In the half century that followed, the story goes, white American taste slowly caught up with the critics. This paper changes the familiar story arc by beginning in the early twentieth century, an era of virulent anti-Chinese prejudice, when white Americans first took note of Chinese dishes and looked beyond their image as reviled immigrant food. Laundrymen exchanged their ironing boards for woks and opened Chinese American restaurants in cities and towns across the commonwealth, serving real Chinese food adapted to white American tastes. Pennsylvanians loved the food, but they were reluctant to patronize establishments they perceived to be dens of vice. Chinese Americans launched a systematic, coordinated effort to overcome the racist stereotypes. Despite their best efforts, few restaurateurs were successful. Chop suey eventually took its place on Pennsylvania tables, but it did so in the form of a deracialized concoction sold in the canned food aisle of grocery stores.

This paper shows that the Conditional Quantile Treatment Effect on the Treated is identified under (i) a Conditional Distributional Difference in Differences assumption and (ii) a new assumption that the dependence (the copula) between the change in untreated potential outcomes and the initial level of untreated potential outcomes is the same for the treated group and untreated group. We consider estimation and inference with discrete covariates and propose a uniform inference procedure based on the exchangeable bootstrap. Finally, we estimate the effect of increasing the minimum wage on the distribution of earnings for subgroups defined by race, gender, and education.