In this paper, I revisit the effects of unilateral divorce laws on female labor supply. I use a variety of models to check the robustness of the results and find that the estimated effects on female labor supply are remarkably robust. The estimates I mainly use in this paper suggest that unilateral divorce laws increase female labor force participation rates by roughly 4-5 percentage points, and that these effects strengthen over time. There are also strong, long-term effects on the weeks and hours of work and on participation in full-time work. In addition, this paper compares the dynamic participation responses of married mothers versus married nonmothers, high education versus low education women, young versus old women and white versus black women.

We study the urban structure of the City of Detroit. Following several decades of decline, the city’s current urban structure is clearly not optimal for its size, with a business district immediately surrounded by a ring of largely vacant neighborhoods. We propose a model with residential externalities that features multiple equilibria at the neighborhood level. In particular, developing a residential area requires the coordination of developers and residents, without which it may remain vacant even if its fundamentals are sound. We embed this mechanism in a quantitative spatial economics model and use it to rationalize current city allocations. We then use the model to evaluate existing strategic visions to revitalize Detroit, and to design alternative plans that rely on ‘development guarantees’ to yield better outcomes. The widespread e¤ects of these policies underscore the importance of using a general equilibrium framework to evaluate policy proposals. 1

Few studies of urban crime patterns have explored whether indicators of relative deprivation (e.g., income inequality) significantly associate with crime at the most theoretically appropriate level of analysis, the neighborhood; whether they do so net of controls for measures of absolute deprivation (e.g., structural disadvantage); and whether their effects vary by race/ethnicity. Drawing on data from the 2000 National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS) and census data extracted from the National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS), I explore these questions for overall, intraracial, and interracial inequality in income and educational attainment with respect to neighborhood homicide, burglary, and robbery rates. Their effects are compared across majority White, Black, and Latino census tracts embedded in a nationally representative sample of large U.S. cities. Consistent with prior research, I find that overall and intraracial inequality are more reliable predictors of neighborhood crime rates than interracial inequality, net of disadvantage; that the overall and intraracial inequality measures exert racially invariant effects only for homicide rates; and that for robbery and burglary rates, the most severe effects of these predictors are found in majority White neighborhoods. Although interracial inequality is never a significant covariate of homicide, it evinces an interesting pattern for the other two crime types: the largest effects are consistently found when the disadvantaged racial group in the comparison resides in neighborhoods where the more advantaged group is in the majority. Theoretical implications and directions . . .

In Korean American culture, emphasis regarding the concept of mother love is often placed on the mother’s self-sacrifice for the sake of a better life for her child. This rhetoric of self-sacrifice is a social construct that was shaped within a patriarchal and Confucian-based culture. This dissertation explores from a feminist pastoral theological perspective the contemporary mother love rhetoric that informs younger-generation Korean American women’s mothering. Using a cultural-political version of the revised correlational method, the dissertation focuses on the theme of self-sacrifice in relation to equal regard and mutuality in the context of being a Korean American mother. It is conducted in four movements. First, it examines the traditional, Confucian-based concept of moseongae, a term that simply means ‘mother love’ in Korean but that carries a nuanced interpretation. It surveys how self-sacrifice was emphasized as the mother’s role in the Joseon dynasty and then reinforced as “instrumental” and “self-sacrificial” during the period of industrialization and modernization in Korea. It also describes how the rhetoric of self-sacrifice was strengthened among Korean American mothers in their experience of immigration. Second, it explores the contextual factors of being a younger-generation Korean American woman. Drawing upon the concepts of women mothering and racialized mothering, it demonstrates various ways younger-generation Korean American mothers respond to the Korean cultural aspects of mothering. Then, it engages Bonnie Miller-McLemore’s feminist pastoral theological work on motherhood as well as Unsunn Lee’s intercultural dialogue on Confucianism, feminism, and Christianity to articulate ways in which the current mother love rhetoric is disempowering to women. Drawing upon the above explorations, the study articulates, challenges, and reconstructs the concept of mother love and suggests alternative ways to look at mother love that are beneficial for younger-generation Korean American women. The study envisions (1) mother love being treated as an “intensively interested” love, (2) mothering as a journey to finding the self in the context of family and community, and (3) the community being involved in rejecting the ongoing patriarchy that resides in the traditional concept and the practice of mother love.

These GIS SHP files cover the spread of different modes of transportation in the Lower 48 states from this nations founding through (approximately) 1911. Each transportation modecanals, steamboat-navigated (as opposed to navigable) rivers, and railroadshas its own archive ZIP file which contains the complete series of files (projection, database and polyline files, etc.) required by ESRIs ArcGIS and ArcGIS Pro. These are collectively referred to as a SHP file though there are actually multiple files for each mode of transportation. Once unpacked, these files for each SHP must be kept together and should only be edited using a GIS program. If corrupted, the entire SHP file will become unusable.

Despite having more similar roles at work and home than ever before, US men and women continue to exhibit different travel behavior. An open question is whether the remaining gender differences in travel differ by traditional and emergent aspects of household structure such as spouse/partner presence, parenthood, and breadwinner status. Using data from the 20032010 American Time Use Survey, this study offers a unique, empirical travel time analysis of metropolitan workers stratified by household structure. Results show that gender differences in travel time respond to multiple aspects of household structure in complex and interactive ways. Gender difference in work travel time is only observable when spouse/partner presence and parenthood interact, i.e., in couple households with children. Gender difference in household support travel reacts to parenthood but not spouse/partner presence. Gender difference in travel time between employed females and employed males in single-breadwinner couples is no different from gender difference in double-breadwinner couples. The results call for policy initiatives and research inquiries that pay greater attention to the large gender disparities in work travel in couple households with children and the large gender disparities in household support travel in all households with children including single-parent households. Although incapable of ruling out the influences of internalized gender differences (e.g., preference theory) and gendered structural contexts (e.g., labor market segmentation), the findings provide clear evidence that traditional gender roles and relations remain operative in contemporary households in the US.

This study estimates the future costs to taxpayers from new retirees in Maine and in the United States as a whole (and there are unreported estimates for each of the other 49 states). As in previous reports of this type, new retirees refers to people turning age 65 in coming years. The projections are for the 15 years from 2018 through 2032.

We analyze the effect of technological change in a novel framework that integrates an economy's skill distribution with its occupational and industrial structure. Individuals become managers or workers based on their managerial vs. worker skills, and workers further sort into a continuum of tasks (occupations) ranked by skill content. Our theory dictates that faster technological progress for middle-skill tasks not only raises the employment shares and relative wages of lower- and higher-skill occupations among workers (horizontal polarization), but also raises those of managers over workers as a whole (vertical polarization). Both dimensions of polarization are faster within sectors that depend more on middle-skill tasks and less on managers. This endogenously leads to faster TFP growth of such sectors, whose employment and value-added shares shrink if sectoral goods are complementary (structural change). We present several novel facts that support our model, followed by a quantitative analysis showing that task-specific technological progress--which was fastest for occupations embodying routine-manual tasks but not interpersonal skills--is important for understanding changes in the sectoral, occupational, and organizational structure of the U.S. economy since 1980.

This study investigates the effect of perceived discrimination on the mental health of Afghan refugees, and secondly, tests the distress moderating effects of pre-migration traumatic experiences and post-resettlement adjustment factors. In a cross-sectional design, 259 Afghans completed surveys assessing perceived discrimination and a number of other factors using scales developed through inductive techniques. Multivariate analyses consisted of a series of hierarchical regressions testing the effect of perceived discrimination on distress, followed by a sequential analysis of moderator variables. Perceived discrimination was significantly associated with higher distress, and this relationship was stronger among those with a strong intra-ethnic identity, high civic engagement, and high pre-resettlement traumatic experiences. Discrimination is a significant source of stress for Afghan refugees, which may exacerbate stresses associated with other post-migration stressors. Future research is needed to tailor interventions that can help mitigate the stress associated with discrimination among this highly vulnerable group.

During the Great Recession in the US, there were distinct housing and labour markets that were particularly hard hit. This was primarily due to the fact that the housing industry had fueled much of the recent economic growth. This article takes advantage of the shock to the construction industry to investigate the responses of Latino immigrants in metropolitan areas that were most heavily concentrated with Latino immigrants in the construction industry. As expected, there were large declines in the proportion of the Latino immigrant population that was working in the construction industry during the recession. There were some shifts of employment in the industry after the recession, but the biggest change was in the number of unemployed. While declines in construction jobs did predict moving out of a metropolitan area, decline in the overall job market had a larger impact on mobility. Finally, we find evidence that those who moved out of the metropolitan area were less likely to be employed, although it is not possible to determine whether they would have been employed in their previous location.

This report examines unemployed workers and unemployment insurance (UI) recipients in North Carolina during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and its aftermath. We use data from the federal government’s Current Population Survey and North Carolina’s Common Follow-up System to learn more about these individuals, including their characteristics and their employment outcomes. Our objective is to help workforce planners and policymakers understand the impact of the last recession so that they can develop strategies for alleviating unemployment during the next recession.

This article leverages a unique data set, recently developed regression methods, and qualitative interviews to investigate the multiple ways real estate agents produce housing inequality. We find that the clustering of agents in and around certain neighborhoods correlates positively with house prices. Our results also show a significant relationship between agent concentration and racial segregation. Our qualitative data reveal how agents engage in steering and upselling. The findings enhance our understanding of mechanisms in the housing market, and provide more empirical clarity on the role real estate agents play in asset and place inequality.

We analyze the effect of technological change in a novel framework that integrates an economy's skill distribution with its occupational and industrial structure. Individuals become managers or workers based on their managerial vs. worker skills, and workers further sort into a continuum of tasks (occupations) ranked by skill content. Our theory dictates that faster technological progress for middle-skill tasks not only raises the employment shares and relative wages of lower-and higher-skill occupations among workers (horizontal polarization), but also raises those of managers over workers as a whole (vertical polarization). Both dimensions of polarization are faster within sectors that depend more on middle-skill tasks and less on managers. This endogenously leads to faster TFP growth of such sectors, whose employment and value-added shares shrink if sectoral goods are complementary (structural change). We present several novel facts that support our model, followed by a quantitative analysis showing that task-specific technological progress-which was fastest for occupations embodying routine-manual tasks but not interpersonal skills-is important for understanding changes in the sectoral, occupational, and organizational structure of the U.S. economy since 1980. * Previously circulated as "Managing a Polarized Structural Change." The theoretical model in this paper was developed in conjunction with another project sponsored by PEDL and DFID, whose financial support (MRG 2356) we gratefully acknowledge. The paper benefited from comments and suggestions from many seminar and conference participants. We are grateful to Frederico Belo and Nancy Stokey in particular, whose conference discussions helped greatly improve the paper. We also thank Sangmin Aum for outstanding research assistance. The usual disclaimer applies.

This paper presents an updated assessment of the technical potential of applying geothermal heat pump (GHP) systems in businesses and homes of the United States. The assessed technical potential includes energy savings, carbon emissions reductions, and consumer energy cost savings. This assessment is based on energy consumption data obtained from the latest survey of the energy consumption of residential and commercial buildings, conducted by the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration. It uses energy savings data for GHP systems compared with existing conventional HVAC systems, which were obtained from the results of a series of computer simulations. The impacts of various climate and geological conditions, as well as the efficiency and market share of existing conventional HVAC systems, have been taken into account in the assessment.

Over the 1990s, the share of foreigners entering the US high-skill workforce grew rapidly. This migration potentially had a significant effect on US workers, consumers and firms. To study these effects, we construct a general equilibrium model of the US economy and calibrate it using data from 1994 to 2001. Counterfactual simulations suggest that immigration increased the overall welfare of US natives, and had significant distributional consequences. In the absence of immigration, wages for US computer scientists would have been 2.6% to 5.1% higher and employment in computer science for US workers would have been 6.1% to 10.8% higher in 2001. On the other hand, complements in production bene- fited substantially from immigration, and immigration also lowered prices and raised the output of IT goods by between 1.9% and 2.5%, thus benefiting consumers. Finally, firms in the IT sector also earned substantially higher profits due to immigration.

Proponents of restrictive immigration policies often claim that immigrants arriving with fewer skills and resources will be less socially mobile. This claim is challenging to test as pre-migration characteristics are not easily separated from host country influences. This article uses new multigenerational data on Irish Americans in the early twentieth century, before and after migration, to study the effect of pre-migration characteristics and the interaction structure of settlement locations on social mobility outcomes. I find a strong link between pre-migration characteristics and economic attainment in the immigrant generation, but this attenuates for second generation children. Second generation social mobility is largely affected by contextual influences, particularly the schooling environment and labor market context of cities. Advantageous places for second generation mobility, such as Pacific cities, appear to have attracted immigrant parents from higher status backgrounds. These findings suggest that selective immigration policies may not be required to ensure upward mobility for the children of immigrants

Identifying the effect of economic institutions on the distribution of wealth and income is challenging because exogenous differences or changes in institutions rarely are observed. We investigate the effects of a particular institution shock - the 1865 abolition of slavery throughout the U.S. -- on the distribution of material wealth. The IPUMS 1860 and 1870 US wealth censuses allow us to use a difference in difference strategy to identify the effect of the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (ratified in 1865) on the distribution of (non-slave) wealth at a county, state and regional level. (We are currently working on the county level analysis and provide the results soon.) We find that changes in wealth inequality between 1860 and 1870 (as measured by the Gini coefficient) diverged significantly between Confederate states where it declined significantly and Union states where it rose somewhat. The fact that the post abolition decline in wealth inequality was greater where slaves played a more important role in a states economy is prima facie evidence consistent with this being an abolition effect. But it could have been in part the result of the Confederate states defeat in Civil War rather than of the abolition of slavery per se. But this seems unlikely in light of two facts. First, confining attention to states that were not part of the Confederacy (so that this Civil War damage confound is absent) including those with an appreciable number of slaves, we find a similar albeit unsurprisingly smaller abolition effect. Second, the post-abolition decline in the Gini coefficient was not greater in the Confederate states than would be predicted based on the extent of slavery in those states and the evidence from slave states that did not join the Confederacy, suggesting that being on the losing side in the war is not the cause of the decline in inequality

Northwest Arkansas has undergone a significant urban transformation in the past several decades and is considered to be one of the fastest growing regions in the United States. The urban area expansion and the associated demographic increases bring unprecedented pressure to the environment and natural resources. To better understand the consequences of urbanization, accurate and long-term depiction on urban dynamics is critical. Although urban mapping activities using remote sensing have been widely conducted, long-term urban growth mapping at an annual pace is rare and the low accuracy of change detection remains a challenge. In this study, a time series Landsat stack covering the period from 1995 to 2015 was employed to detect the urban dynamics in Northwest Arkansas via a two-stage classification approach. A set of spectral indices that have been proven to be useful in urban area extraction together with the original Landsat spectral bands were used in the maximum likelihood classifier and random forest classifier to distinguish urban from non-urban pixels for each year. A temporal trajectory polishing method, involving temporal filtering and heuristic reasoning, was then applied to the sequence of classified urban maps for further improvement. Based on a set of validation samples selected for five distinct years, the average overall accuracy of the final polished maps was 91%, which improved the preliminary classifications by over 10%. Moreover, results from this study also indicated that the temporal trajectory polishing method was most effective with initial low accuracy classifications. The resulting urban dynamic map is expected to provide unprecedented details about the area, spatial configuration, and growing trends of urban land-cover in Northwest Arkansas.

Hate crime proves prevalent in American society, inflicting a variety of harms on victims as well as society at large. Scholars have long sought to understand the motivations and conditions behind hate crime offending. Green and his colleagues conducted the classic neighborhood studies examining the conditions that foster hate crime (Green, Glaser, & Rich, 1998; Green, Strolovich, & Wong, 1998; Green, Strolovitch, Wong, & Bailey). Using data from the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, the current study replicates and extends Green's neighborhood studies by investigating hate crime in New York City from 1995 to 2010. This study investigates whether Green, Strolovitch, & Wong’s (1998) findings hold true over an extended period of time in New York City, during which the city underwent major demographic changes. Using a group conflict framework (Blalock, 1967; Tolnay & Beck, 1995), the current study extends prior work by investigating the impact of various "threats, including defended neighborhoods as well as economic, political, terrorist, and gay threat, on different types of anti-minority hate crime, including those against racial, ethnic, and religious minorities as well as anti-gay hate crime. The current study also integrates criminological frameworks, testing social disorganization and strain to explain hate crime. Using negative binomial regression . . .

The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), passed during the Great Depression, stabilized a mortgage market in which half of all debt was in default. While designed as short term relief, HOLC had a lasting effect on the mortgage market through institutionalizing the racist practice of denying mortgages to communities of color. Over subsequent decades, “redlining” funneled billions of dollars away from black neighborhoods and shaped segregation patterns and the racial wealth gap. Contemporary housing inequality is a result of this history of racialized exclusion. This paper combines newly-digitized archival data with data describing recent mortgage outcomes to investigate the intransigence of spatial inequality in housing finance. I show that borrowers in the early Twenty First Century were at a severe disadvantage when pursuing mortgages in neighborhoods redlined by HOLC appraisers in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Specifically, such applicants were more likely to be denied loans and receive subprime loans. Furthermore, foreclosures were more common in redlined areas during the Great Recession. This paper shows that the geographic patterns of vulnerability to exclusion and exploitation are remarkably stable and highlights the role of persistent institutional marginalization in replicating racial and spatial inequalities.