Urbanization is a fundamental reality in the developed and developing countries around the world creating large concentrations of the population centering on cities and urban centers. Cities can offer many opportunities for those residing there, including infrastructure, health services, rescue services and more. The living space density of cities allows for the opportunity of more effective and environmentally friendly housing, transportation and resources. Cities play a vital role in generating economic production as entities by themselves and as a part of larger urban complex. The benefits can provide for extraordinary amount of people, but only if proper planning and consideration is undertaken. Global urbanization is a progressive evolution, unique in spatial location while . . .

This paper measures the impact of individual-level housing capital gains on transitions into and out of self-employment. Drawing on special features of the 1985-2013 American Housing Survey (AHS) panel, our most robust models control for recent expenditures on home maintenance, MSA-by-year fixed effects, lagged proxies for wealth and other household attributes. Net of home maintenance, a 20 percent real increase in home value over a two-year period raises the likelihood of entry into self-employment by roughly 1.5 percentage points; housing capital losses have little effect on exits. Controlling for house fixed effects, self-employed homeowners are also more likely to hold a HELOC, facilitating easy, lowcost access to home equity that could be used to cover business expenses. These and other estimates suggest that links between homeownership and self-employment are strong enough to be important when home prices are rising rapidly, but modest when housing capital gains are limited or negative.

Since the mid-1990s, the United States has witnessed a dramatic rise in drug overdose mortality. Educational gradients in life expectancy widened over the same period, and drug overdose likely plays a role in this widening, particularly for non-Hispanic whites. The contemporary drug epidemic is distinctive in terms of its scope, the nature of the substances involved, and its geographic patterning, which influence how it impacts different education groups. I use vital statistics and National Health Interview Survey data to examine the contribution of drug overdose to educational gradients in life expectancy from 1992-2011. I find that over this period, years of life lost due to drug overdose increased for all education groups and for both males and females. The contribution of drug overdose to educational gradients in life expectancy has increased over time and is greater for non-Hispanic whites than for the population as a whole. Drug overdose accounts for a sizable proportion of the increases in educational gradients in life expectancy, particularly at the prime adult ages (ages 30-60), where it accounts for 25 % to 100 % of the widening in educational gradients between 1992 and 2011. Drug overdose mortality has increased more rapidly for females than for males, leading to a gender convergence. These findings shed light on the processes driving recent changes in educational gradients in life expectancy and suggest that effective measures to address the drug overdose epidemic should take into account its differential burden across education groups.

This paper studies the changes in land use and population characteristics around station areas following the building of rail transit stations in 14 major cities in the United States from 1990 to 2010. It answers the question: how have investments in US rail transit made since the 1990s affected land use and demographics? It also looks at the specific effects of investments on population density, race, and ethnicity, means of transportation, median housing value, median household income, vehicle access share, occupations, and land use represented by the share of multifamily versus single-family housing. Using block group level US census data at three time periods and GIS boundary files from NHGIS.org, as well as the spatially-matched rail stations, this research looks at the 0.5-mile buffer around rail stations as its treatment area and the 1-mile buffer around it, excluding the treatment area, as its control zone. It uses a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional data. For its quantitative analyses, it uses GIS analyses and panel regression analyses to determine the overall impact of rail transit investments as well as the impact on stations that are near versus those that are far from the Central Business District. An investment in rail transit leads to an increase in the share of workers commuting by public transportation and a decrease in median incomes around the station. The investment also brings about the growth in non-white population around central city stations, an increase in the share of public transit, a decrease in the proportion of telecommuters, and a drop in the car share in areas that are far from the CBD, and a decline in median household income in both areas. However, the investment has no significant effect on population density, housing value, the share of multifamily housing, vehicle access, race, ethnicity, and the employment structure near the stations. The results show that the new rail transit stations or systems have helped disadvantaged populations, but that rail investments have ambiguous impacts on development and growth around the stations.

The key intent of this paper is to lay the foundation for a more complete understanding of poverty and its connections to economics and public policy by accounting for the cost of living and demographics. This analysis of demographic differences in state poverty rates, especially among minorities, may spur both federal and state policy makers to consider new approaches for reducing poverty, 50 years after Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty.

We document that fluctuations in part-time employment play a major role in movements in hours per worker during cyclical swings in the labor market. Building on this result, we develop a stock-flow framework to describe the dynamics of part-time employment. The evolution of part-time employment is predominantly explained by cyclical changes in transitions between full-time and part-time employment. Those transitions occur overwhelmingly at the same employer, entail sizable changes in individuals’ working hours and are associated with an increase in involuntary part-time work. Our findings provide a novel understanding of the cyclical dynamics of labor adjustment on the intensive margin.

This paper quantifies whether compulsory schooling laws are still effective in the 21st century and if so, to what extent the school compulsion continues to influence individuals’ educational achievement and labor market earnings. Using American Community Survey, I find that compulsory schooling laws were effective for the white men and women born in the 1930s and 1940s in the U.S.; however, they no longer produce the same seasonality effects on the educational attainment of the white cohorts who completed their educational attainment in the 2000s. I also find that the school compulsion was not binding for the older African American cohorts; however, they were effective in keeping the younger African American men at school longer.

Recent studies identify a robust positive correlation between the productivity of urban workers and the presence of a diverse range of immigrants in their midst. Seeking to better understand this relationship, this article tests the hypothesis that the rewards from immigrant diversity will be higher in metropolitan areas that feature more inclusive social and economic institutions. Institutions ought to matter because they regulate transaction costs, which, in principle, determine whether or not diversity offers advantages or disadvantages. We exploit longitudinal linked employer–employee data for the United States to test this idea, and we triangulate across two measures that differently capture the inclusiveness of urban institutions. Findings offer support for the hypothesis. In cities with low levels of inclusive institutions, the benefits of diversity are modest and in some cases nonexistent; in cities with high levels of inclusive institutions, the benefits of immigrant diversity are positiv...

U.S. output has expanded only slowly since the recession trough in 2009, even though the unemployment rate has essentially returned to a pre-crisis, normal level. We use a growth-accounting decomposition to explore explanations for the output shortfall, giving full treatment to cyclical effects that, given the depth of the recession, should have implied unusually fast growth. We find that the growth shortfall has almost entirely reflected two factors: the slow growth of total factor productivity, and the decline in labor force participation. Both factors reflect powerful adverse forces that are largely unrelated to the financial crisis and recession—and that were in play before the recession.

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) is a critical area of scientific research that contributes to the understanding of fundamental socioeconomic, environmental, and geographical processes and applications. This dissertation focused on three aspects of LULCC, namely i) understanding spatial patterns and process of LULCC related to forest cover changes, ii) socioeconomic and proximate factors related to forest cover losses, and iii) carbon emission and energy balance of LULCC related to bioenergy cropping. More specifically: 1) Spatial patterns of forest cover changes were quantified using a novel spatial metric, forest attrition distance. The metric correlates with spatial patterns of forest cover changes and is effective in identifying forest attrition. It was applied across the conterminous U.S. and showed disproportionately large forest attrition in western U.S., rural areas, and public lands. 2) Gross forest cover losses in U.S. counties in 1990s and 2000s were found to be significantly related to seven predictors variables of underlying and proximate factors. Among these factors, slope and agriculture are more influential than others such as education, urbanization, and population changes. Spatial error model regression was applied to address spatial autocorrelation, and model fit expressed through . . .

It has been argued that episodes of acceleration in economic growth can be driven by particular technologies. These revolutionary technologies, often referred to as General Purpose Technologies (GPTs), have the power to change the pace and direction of economic progress. While historical accounts and theoretical models have advanced greatly in providing both, a precise and coherent characterization of GPTs and the economic consequences of its diffusion, empirical evidence is still scattered. This paper contributes to the literature in two ways, first it provides a way of characterizing GPTs using patent data and shows that the most iconic example, electricity, fulfils these criteria. Secondly, it documents the positive impact of the diffusion of electricity-related inventions on income per capita and wages at county level in the United States from 1860 to 1930. Results are in line with previous historical accounts on the subject, and are consistent with theoretical predictions.. Phone/Fax: +31 (0) 30 253 1368. Email: S.G.Petralia@uu.nl. I would like to thank all the participants at the University of Barcelona AQR seminar and the 2016 RIDGE Forum at the University of Buenos Aires for their useful comments. 1

Background: Time shared with a partner is an indicator of marital well-being and couples’ want to spend time together. However, time spent with a partner depends on work and family arrangements as well as on the policies, norms, and values that prevail in society. In contrast to time spent with children, couples’ shared time is underresearched in a cross-national context. Previous studies from specific countries show that dual-earner couples spend less time together and that parents spend less time alone with each other. Objective: The aim of our study is to investigate partnered parents’ shared time across countries to understand how social conditions, cultural norms, and policy contexts are related to the amount and nature of couples’ shared time. Specifically, we compare time spent with a partner in the United States, France, and Spain. Methods: Studying data from national time use surveys conducted in the United States, France, and Spain, we extract information about who undertakes certain activities in order to examine three types of time shared with a partner for parents with children under age 10: total time with a partner indicates the minutes per day spent in the presence of a partner, exclusive time corresponds to the minutes per day spent alone with a partner when no one else is present, and family time indicates the minutes per day spent with a partner and a child at the same time. Results: Our results show that US couples spend the least time together and Spanish couples spend the most time together. Parents in France spend the most time alone with each other. The most striking difference across countries is in time with a partner and children, which is much higher among Spanish families. Conclusions: The constraints of paid work explain a small part of the differences in couples’ shared time observed between countries. Differences in couples’ shared time across countries seem to be related to social norms surrounding family and general time use. Contribution: Examination of couples’ shared time in cross-national context is unexplored. By examining cross-national variation in work and family demands on parents’ time with a partner in three countries - the United States, Spain, and France - each with different social and policy contexts as well as cultural norms about the desire to spend more or less time with a partner, this research begins to fill the current void in the literature.

We study whether male-biased demand shocks affect women's labor force participation (LFP), using major oil field discoveries in the US South between 1900 and 1940. We find that oil wealth has a zero net effect on female LFP due to two opposing channels. Increased male wages lead to a higher marriage rate of young women, which could have depressed female LFP. But at the same time, oil wealth also increases demand for female labor in services, which counterbalances the marriage effect.

We provide some of the most disaggregated estimates of the welfare effects of land use regulation. To do so, we link individuals between the 1920 and 1940 censuses in order to analyze how households responded to the introduction of Chicago’s comprehensive zoning ordinance. Drawing on pre-zoning demographic and land use microdata, we construct a plausibly exogenous household-level measure of zoning mismatch. We find that zoning played a meaningful role in shaping the demographic composition of the neighborhood, with the largest effects appearing in black neighborhoods. Movers (native, black, and foreign) were able to completely offset the changes brought about by zoning. While commercial and manufacturing zoning lowered overall neighborhood quality for blacks, blacks that stayed behind benefited from increased job access.

With the majority of all H-1B visas going to Indians, we study how US immigration policy coupled with the internet boom affected both the US and Indian economies, and in particular both countries’ IT sectors. The H-1B scheme led to a tech boom in both countries, inducing substantial gains in firm productivity and consumer welfare in both the United States and India. We find that the US-born workers gained $431 million in 2010 as a result of the H-1B scheme. In India, the H-1B program induced Indians to switch to computer science (CS) occupations, increasing the CS workforce and raising overall IT output in India by 5 percent. Indian students enrolled in engineering schools to gain employment in the rapidly growing US IT industry via the H-1B visa program. Those who could not join the US workforce, due to the H-1B cap, remained in India, and along with return-migrants, enabled the growth of an Indian IT sector, which led to the outsourcing of some production to India. The migration and rise in Indian exports induced a small number of US workers to switch to non-CS occupations, with distributional impacts. Our general equilibrium model captures firm-hiring across various occupations, innovation and technology diffusion, and dynamic worker decisions to choose occupations and fields of major in both the United States and India. Supported by a rich descriptive analysis of the changes in the 1990s and 2000s, we match data moments and show that our model captures levels and trends of key variables in validation tests. We perform counter-factual exercises and find that on average, workers in each country are better off because of high-skill migration.

Occupational licensing regulation has increased dramatically in importance over the last several decades, currently affecting more than one thousand occupations in the United States. I use confidential U.S. Census Bureau micro-data to study the relationship between occupational licensing and key business outcomes, such as number of practitioners, prices for consumers, and practitioners’ entry and exit rates. The paper sheds light on the effect of occupational licensing on industry dynamics and intensity of competition, and is the first to study the effects on providers of required occupational training. I find that occupational licensing regulation does not affect the equilibrium number of practitioners or prices of services to consumers, but reduces significantly practitioner entry and exit rates. I further find that providers of occupational licensing training, namely, schools, are larger and seem to do better, in terms of revenues and gross margins, in states with more stringent occupational licensing regulation.

BACKGROUND: Satellite facilities of National Cancer Institute (NCI) cancer centers have expanded their regional footprints. This study characterized geographic access to parent and satellite NCI cancer center facilities nationally overall and by sociodemographics. METHODS: Parent and satellite NCI cancer center facilities, which were geocoded in ArcGIS, were ascertained. Travel times from every census tract in the continental United States and Hawaii to the nearest parent and satellite facilities were calculated. Census-based population attributes were used to characterize measures of geographic access for sociodemographic groups. RESULTS: From the 62 NCI cancer centers providing clinical care in 2014, 76 unique parent locations and 211 satellite locations were mapped. The overall proportion of the population within 60 minutes of a facility was 22% for parent facilities and 32.7% for satellite facilities. When satellites were included for potential access, the proportion of some racial groups for which a satellite was the closest NCI cancer center facility increased notably (Native Americans, 22.6% with parent facilities and 39.7% with satellite facilities; whites, 34.8% with parent facilities and 50.3% with satellite facilities; and Asians, 40.0% with parent facilities and 54.0% with satellite facilities), with less marked increases for Hispanic and black populations. Rural populations of all categories had dramatically low proportions living within 60 minutes of an NCI cancer center facility of any type (1.0%-6.6%). Approximately 14% of the population (n=43,033,310) lived more than 180 minutes from a parent or satellite facility, and most of these individuals were Native Americans and/or rural residents (37% of Native Americans and 41.7% of isolated rural residents). CONCLUSIONS: Racial/ethnic and rural populations showed markedly improved geographic access to NCI cancer center care when satellite facilities were included.

Do male-biased demand shocks affect women’s labor force participation? To study this question, we examine large oil field discoveries in the US South from 1900-1940. We find that oil wealth has a zero net effect on female labor force participation due to two opposing channels. Oil discoveries increase demand for male labor in oil mining and manufacturing and consequentially raise male wages. This leads to an increased marriage rate of young women, which could have depressed female labor force participation. But at the same time, oil wealth also increases demand for women in services, which counterbalances the marriage effect and leaves women’s overall labor force participation rate unchanged. Our findings demonstrate that when the nontradable sector is open to women, male-biased demand shocks in the tradable sector need not reduce female labor force participation.

Winling uses a series of case studies from the Progressive Era to the present day and covers institutions across the country, from state schools to the Ivy League. He explores how university builders and administrators worked in concert with a variety of interests—including the business community, philanthropists, and all levels of government—to achieve their development goals. Even as concerned citizens and grassroots organizers attempted to influence this process, university builders tapped into the full range of policy and economic tools to push forward their vision. Block by block, road by road, building by building, they constructed carefully managed urban institutions whose economic and political power endures to this day.

We study the deterioration of employment in middle-wage, routine occupations in the United States in the last 35 years. The decline is primarily driven by changes in the propensity to work in routine jobs for individuals from a small set of demographic groups. These same groups account for a substantial fraction of both the increase in non-employment and employment in low-wage, non-routine manual occupations observed during the same period. We analyze a general neoclassical model of the labor market featuring endogenous participation and occupation choice. In response to an increase in automation technology, the framework embodies a tradeoff between reallocating employment across occupations and reallocation of workers towards non-employment. Quantitatively, we find that this standard model accounts for a relatively small portion of the joint decline in routine employment and associated rise in non-routine manual employment and non-employment.