This thesis studies married couples’ decisions regarding labour supply, fertility, and take-up of parental leave. Importantly, it emphasizes household interactions in a family labour supply framework where husbands and wives jointly make decisions. In Chapter 2, I describe how differences in married individuals’ time allocations between Canada and the U.S. may be related to different parental leave policies in the two countries. First, I document background information on parental leave policies and take-up behaviour in the two countries. Second, I analyze married individuals’ time allocations using data from the General Social Survey (GSS) for Canada and American Time Use Survey (ATUS) for the U.S. I examine the role of having children on their parents’ time allocations across market work, child care, household chores, and leisure and make cross-country comparisons. In Chapter 3, I investigate the effects of maternity leave policies on married couples’ fertility and employment decisions. I develop and characterize a unique household search model that features home production and endogenous fertility choice. I characterize reservation rules in the household search model and find that this model can generate patterns that cannot be generated by an individual search model. In particular, I parameterize a benchmark model that provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave as in the U.S. I use a parameterized model to examine the impact of an extended paid maternity leave policy on fertility rates and household employment. I find that a longer paid maternity leave increases fertility rates, lowers fraction of dual-earner couples, and increases the fraction of single-earner couples.

This Social Policy Report, with a focus on the diversity of the Dual Language Learner and English Learner populations, is drawn from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s 2017 publication, Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising Futures (the Promising Futures report) with additional research reviewed by the authors of this Social Policy Report to address policy and instructional implications. The Promising Futures report provides extensive summaries of research on English Learner language acquisition, English Learners and special education, and English Learner assessment. The report also discusses considerations related to research and practice that can be of considerable usefulness for understanding and acting upon the educational success of Dual Language Learners (DLLs; children age 5 and under learning two languages at once) and English Learners (ELs; children in the pre-K-12 education system whose primary language is not English and who are learning English as a second language). This Social Policy Report focuses on the demographic characteristics of DLLs and ELs to emphasize that these children and youth are a rapidly growing and substantive population in U.S. schools; are highly diverse in national, cultural, and linguistic origins; are dispersed throughout the nation; and have distinct socioeconomic situations, immigration experiences, and backgrounds. In addition, this Social Policy Report includes a brief discussion of the assessment of English learners, workforce needs, and implications for practice. The report attempts to further contextualize an understanding of the educational needs of these students and the increasing diversity of DLLs and ELs.

Purpose Racial/ethnic disparities in rates of low birthweight (LBW) are well established, as are racial/ethnic differences in health outcomes over the life course. Yet, there is little empirical work examining whether the consequences of LBW for subsequent child health vary by race, ethnicity, and national origin. Methods Using data from the 1998–2016 National Health Interview Survey, we examined whether racial, ethnic, and national differences existed in the association between LBW and subsequent health outcomes, namely being diagnosed with a developmental disability, asthma diagnosis, and poorer general health. Results Children born with LBW consistently had poorer health relative to children born with normal birthweight. There was no systematic evidence that the linkages between LBW and subsequent health were weaker for one racial/ethnic/national origin group relative to others. Conclusions LBW was associated with subsequent poorer health. There was no systematic evidence that the link between LBW and subsequent child health were weaker for one racial/ethnic/national origin group relative to others. Together, these findings highlight the importance of reducing race/ethnic disparities in rates of LBW as a way of eradicating inequalities in childhood health.

We study how the recent housing boom and bust affected college enrollment during the 2000s. We exploit cross-city variation in local housing booms, which improved labor market opportunities for young men and women. We find that the boom lowered college enrollment, with effects concentrated at two-year colleges. The decline in enrollment during the boom was generally reversed during the bust; however, attainment remains persistently low for particular cohorts, suggesting that reduced educational attainment is an enduring effect of the recent housing cycle. The housing boom can account for approximately 25 percent of the recent slowdown in college attainment

It is difficult to know if racial discrepancies in police stop and search data are caused by taste-based or statistical discrimination. In part, this is due to uncertainty over the benchmark of unbiased police behavior: do officers aim to maximize arrests or to minimize crime? In this paper, I compare models of the two police objectives to data from U.S. cities. The models yield testable predictions for police spending and the difference in arrest rates across race. Empirical evidence is consistent with a model of arrest maximization and inconsistent with a model of crime minimization. These findings support the validity of existing tests for discrimination that rely on the assumption that police maximize arrests.

How is work distributed across individuals within society? And what can this tell us about career transition possibilities and job switching opportuni-ties? This paper investigates the network structure of the division of labour by analysing discrete work activities that people undertake in different occupations. We find that what people do in their current job matters for their future job-people are significantly more likely to transition into occupations sharing similar work activities. Moreover, we find that our measure of occupational work-activity similarity is more predictive of job-to-job transitions than existing benchmark measures. We also highlight how our new networks-based lenses on labour can illuminate a range of labour market topics, including the gendered division of labour and the future of work.

Competing theories explain differences in skill mix across cities. Two of these predict house price effects when strong assumptions of homothetic and homogeneous preferences are relaxed. This paper argues these two housing demand theories taken together imply the college ratio of Hispanic workers in a city should correlate negatively with the same ratio for non-Hispanic white workers. Empirical testing finds this prediction holds and relates the divergent location pattern to differences in housing demand. Overall, results confirm theoretical predictions that geographic variation in human capital per worker is significantly influenced by the local price of housing.

This chapter reviews the evidence connecting World War II to US economic performance in the second half of the twentieth century. We emphasize the substantial costs of mobilizing the economy for war and provide a brief discussion of the institutions created to manage the war effort. We then survey four areas where research on World War II has concentrated: (1) the rise of women's labor participation, (2) the decrease in wage and wealth inequality, (3) the postwar growth miracle, and (4) the changing role of government in American society. Economic historians and economists have provided important revisions in each area. Along the way, we point in several directions for future research.

Objective: To evaluate impacts of state Medicaid expansions for low‐income parents on the health insurance coverage, pregnancy intention, and use of prenatal care among mothers who became pregnant. Data Sources/Study Setting: Person‐level data for women with a live birth from the 1997–2012 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. Data Collection/Extraction Methods: The sample was restricted to women who were already parents using information on previous live births and combined with information on state Medicaid policies for low‐income parents. Study Design: I used a measure of expanded generosity of state Medicaid eligibility for low‐income parents to estimate changes in health insurance, pregnancy intention, and prenatal care for pregnant mothers associated with Medicaid expansion. Principal Findings: I found an increase in prepregnancy health insurance coverage and coverage during pregnancy among pregnant mothers, as well as earlier initiation of prenatal care, associated with the expansions. Among pregnant mothers with less education, I found an increase in the adequacy of prenatal care utilization. Conclusions: Expanded Medicaid coverage for low‐income adults has the potential to increase a woman's health insurance coverage prior to pregnancy, as well as her insurance coverage and medical care receipt during pregnancy.

This volume addresses how black, middle class, second generation Caribbean immigrants are often overlooked in contemporary discussions of race, black economic mobility, and immigrant communities in the US. Based on rich ethnography, Yndia S. Lorick-Wilmot draws attention to this persisting invisibility by exploring this generation’s experiences in challenging structures of oppression as adult children of post-1965 Caribbean immigrants and as an important part of the African-American middle class. She recounts compelling stories from participants regarding their identity performances in public and private spaces—including what it means to be “black and making it in America”—as well as the race, gender, and class constraints they face as part of a larger transnational community.

We use 1940 Census data to study the intergenerational transmission of human capital for children born in the 1920s and educated during an era of expanding but unequally distributed public school resources. Looking at the gains in educational attainment between parents and children, we document lower average mobility rates for blacks than whites, but wide variation across states and counties for both races. We show that schooling choices of white children were highly responsive to the quality of local schools, with bigger effects for the children of less-educated parents. We then narrow our focus to black families in the South, where state-wide minimum teacher salary laws created sharp differences in teacher wages between adjacent counties. These differences had large impacts on schooling attainment, suggesting an important causal role for school quality in mediating upward mobility.

Positive emotions have long-lasting benefits for human development. Understanding the connections between daily travel behavior and emotional well-being will not only help transportation practitioners identify concrete strategies to improve user experiences of transportation services, but also help health practitioners to identify innovative solutions for improving public health. Prior research on the subject had focused on limited travel behavior dimensions such as travel mode and/or travel duration. Other dimensions such as travel purpose and travel companionship have received limited attention. Using data from the 2012–2013 American Time Use Survey, this paper applied the generalized ordered logistic regression approach and examined how the mode, duration, purpose, and companionship characteristics of a trip shape six different emotions during the trip, including happy, meaningful, tired, stressful, sad, and pain. After controlling for personal demographics, health conditions, and residential locations, we find that biking is the happiest mode; public transit is the least happy and least meaningful; and utilitarian walking for transportation is associated with all four negative emotions. Trip duration has a negative association with happiness and a positive association with stress. Travel for discretionary purposes such as leisure, exercise, and community activities is generally associated with higher levels of positive emotions and lower levels of negative emotions than travel for work or household maintenance. Trips with eating and drinking purposes appear to be the happiest and trips with the purpose of spiritual and/or volunteering activities appear to be the most meaningful. Travel with family especially children or travel with friends is happier and more meaningful than travel alone. Transportation planners in the U.S. are recommended to promote biking behavior, improve transit user experiences, and implement spatial planning strategies for creating a built environment conducive to shorter trips, more discretionary trips, and more joint trips with family and friends.

A long-standing debate in political economy is whether voters are driven primarily by economic self-interest or by less pecuniary motives like ethnocentrism. Using newly available data, we reexamine one of the largest partisan shifts in a modern democracy: Southern whites' exodus from the Democratic Party. We show that defection among racially conservative whites explains the entire decline from 1958 to 1980. Racial attitudes also predict whites' earlier partisan shifts. Relative to recent work, we find a much larger role for racial views and essentially no role for income growth or (non-race-related) policy preferences in explaining why Democrats "lost" the South.

This study uses American Community Survey data to estimate the returns to a double major, with a focus on differential returns by race and ethnicity. Consistent with past findings, this study finds a positive return on earnings for double majors, but caution that these results are not necessarily causal. After addressing the return to a double major for the whole sample, the study then looks at heterogeneity in the return to a double major by race and gender. A theoretical model is presented which predicts that non-whites will see a higher return on earnings than whites. As predicted, blacks and Hispanics see a significantly higher return to a double major than whites. Policy focused on lowering the cost of double majoring could help to alleviate some of the racial earnings gap.

With due apologies to the geologists, I am convinced, after having read nothing but mining history of the West for the last three years, that mines are discovered by accident. Had it not been for Indians who showed glittering stones to eager prospectors, and for burros which broke their hobbles and strayed away while their masters slept, the gold rushes would not have occurred. The number of Indians who wore silver and turquoise ornaments, yet refused to divulge the sources from which they came, or who dangled sparkling specimens of rock before greedy white men's eyes and then gave sketchy...

This paper studies whether consumer undervaluation on energy factor can explain “the energy paradox” within automotive market, where slow adoption of vehicles with better fuel economy has been observed. We obtained survey data from California Energy Commission, used random coefficient logit model developed by Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) to perform market demand estimation, and created an empirical willingness to pay (WTP) distribution for an additional miles per gallon (mpg) to investigate consumer valuation. Our result shows that only about 30% of the distribution has WTP more than $600 (calculated as a reasonable cutoff for one more mpg). With the majority unwilling to pay for an extra mpg, this suggests that consumers undervalue fuel economy, illustrating the paradox.

The empirical aspects of vertical tax externalities have been studied fairly extensively, but with little consensus – a fact that may relate to difficulties in isolating exogenous components in tax setting policy. Adopting the case of the US and using a narrative approach (Romer and Romer, 2010), I study the vertical effects of federal tax shocks. I find that vertical tax externalities are modest in their size and are only present in corporate taxation. In particular, I estimate that a $1 billion increase in federal tax revenues reduces total state corporate tax revenues by approximately $27 million. Non-corporate state tax revenues do not seem to be affected by federal tax shocks. Taking a state micro-level approach and using firm-level business activity data, I show that the findings point to the erosion of states’ corporate tax bases.

Predicting the cheapest sample size for the optimal stratification in multivariate survey design is a problem in cases where the population frame is large. A solution exists that iteratively searches for the minimum sample size necessary to meet accuracy constraints in partitions of atomic strata created by the Cartesian product of auxiliary variables into larger strata. The optimal stratification can be found by testing all possible partitions. However the number of possible partitions grows exponentially with the number of initial strata. There are alternative ways of modelling this problem, one of the most natural is using Genetic Algorithms (GA). These evolutionary algorithms use recombination, mutation and selection to search for optimal solutions. They often converge on optimal or near-optimal solution more quickly than exact methods. We propose a new GA approach to this problem using grouping genetic operators instead of traditional operators. The results show a significant improvement in solution quality for similar computational effort, corresponding to large monetary savings

Children’s participation in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) rose by 5 percentage points between 2013 and 2016. As a result, 1.7 million fewer Medicaid/CHIP-eligible children were uninsured in 2016. Participation was lower among adults than among children, and nearly 6 million Medicaid-eligible adults were uninsured in 2016.

The Great Lakes region contains productive agricultural and forest lands, but it is also highly urbanized, with 32 of its 52 million residents living in nine large metropolitan areas. Urbanization of undeveloped areas may adversely affect the productivity of agricultural and forest lands, and the provision of ecosystem services. We combine demographic and remote sensing data to evaluate land cover change in the region using a two-phase statistical modeling approach that predicts the incidence and extent of land cover change for each of the region’s 10,579 county subdivisions. Observed patterns are spatially uneven, and the probability of land cover change is influenced by current land use, human habitation, industry, and demographic change. Pseudo R2 values varied from 0.053 to 0.338 for the first-phase logistic models predicting the presence of land cover change; second-stage beta models predicting the rate of change were more reliable, with pseudo R2 ranging from 0.225 to 0.675. Overall, changes from agriculture or greenspace to development were much more predictable than changes from agriculture to greenspace or vice versa, and demographic variables were much more important in models predicting change to development. Although models successfully predicted the general location of land cover change, and models from before the Great Recession were useful for predicting the location but not the amount of change during the recession, fine-grained prediction remained challenging. Understanding where future changes are most probable can inform planning and policy-making, which may reduce the impact of development on resource production, environmental health, and ecosystem services.