Supporting the needs of veterans, service members, and their families is a national priority. Over the past decade, several studies profiling the needs of the veteran populationparticularly those who have served in the post-9/11 erahave called for improved access to transition support, education and employment benefits, and health care services. In response, the federal government has expanded funding and services to address challenges facing these populations. At the same time, there has been a proliferation of nongovernmental support to improve services for veterans and their families in local communities. Often, in an attempt to deploy resources quickly, new programs are implemented without a full understanding of the specific needs of the populations they serve. This study was designed to gather information on the needs of veterans, current members of the National Guard and reserves (NG/R), and their families in Massachusetts with the goals of identifying gaps in the support landscape and informing future investments in community-level resources. This research draws on multiple data sources to provide a clearer picture of the population of veterans and NG/R residing in Massachusetts, as well as the resources available to them and their families. The findings and recommendations outlined in this report should be of interest to federal, state, and local policymakers, and program administrators who are engaged in providing support to these populations and would benefit from a greater understanding of their characteristics and needs. To complement this report, we have collected the data and analyses presented here in an online tool at www.rand.org/t/TL228. The tool allows stakeholders, researchers, and other interested parties to develop their own tables and charts to support their efforts to understand the characteristics and needs of the populations they serve. Specifically, users can explore the data by region, service era, and other characteristics of Massachusetts veterans. In addition, members of those populations who are seeking resources can search the tools resource catalog by location and resource type. More information about the tool is available on the project website, www.rand.org/mavets. This work was commissioned by The Klarman Family Foundation. The research was conducted in RAND Health, a division of the RAND Corporation. A profile of RAND Health, abstracts of its publications, and ordering information can be found at www.rand.org/health.

Childrens oral language skills typically begin to develop sooner than their written language skills; however, the four language systems (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) then develop concurrently as integrated strands that influence one another. This research explored relationships between students errors in language comprehension of passages across oral and written modalities (listening and reading) and in language expression across oral and written modalities (speaking and writing). The data for this study were acquired during the standardization of the Kaufman Test of Educational AchievementThird Edition (KTEA-3). Correlational analyses from the total sample (n = 2,443-3,552) and within grade bands revealed low to moderate correlations (.26-.50). No evidence of convergent or divergent validity was found when comparing correlations of same-name error types (e.g., inferential errors across modalities) with correlations of different-name error types. These results support previous research findings and hypotheses that language by ear, eye, hand, and mouth are separable but interacting systems that differ in more ways than modality of input/output.

A long-standing and ongoing severe economic crisis, which was exacerbated in 2006 with the expiration of federal corporate income tax breaks, sharply deteriorating economic conditions, and the implementation of an unprecedented sales tax, resulted in a mass exodus of over half a million residents from Puerto Rico to the mainland between 2006 and 2014. This dramatic population shift has economic, demographic, and social implications for both the island and mainland, particularly if the net outmigration is not skill-neutral. Our study addresses whether higher-skilled or lower-skilled migrants were disproportionately represented in the net outmigration flow. Using public-use microdata from the American Community Survey and the Puerto Rican Community Survey, our findings suggest that the recent migration wave has not been characterized by a select group of highly educated individuals. Instead, the skill levels among migrants between the island and mainland have been volatile with respect to both observable and unobservable skills and other characteristics after 2006 (the latter being measured in terms of unexplained earnings differentials with non-Hispanic whites). Our findings also point to how rapidly net migration flows respond to changing economic and sociopolitical conditions between the island and mainland, and how skill-based migration continues to depend on systemic conditions between the regions.

The recent housing market crisis in the United States led to a drastic drop in homeownership and house values nationwide. While research documents the disproportionate impact of the housing market crisis on blacks, and the surprisingly small effect on immigrants, no research investigates how individuals who are both black and immigrants fared. I use 20052007 and 20092011 pooled American Community Survey data (N = 2,000,689 and 2,013,001, respectively) to determine whether black immigrants housing market outcomes mirrored that of U.S.-born blacks or other immigrants during the housing crisis. Using the maximum likelihood estimator regression with a Heckman correction to measure race and nativity differences in homeownership and house value, I find that there is a great deal of diversity in black immigrant housing market outcomes. Caribbean immigrants experienced significantly larger drops in homeownership than U.S.-born whites and blacks and Asian immigrants, but there is no significant difference between whites and African immigrants. Consistent with previous research, living in major settlement areas meditated black immigrants housing market disadvantage. Despite the benefits of living in a co-ethnic community, both African and Caribbean immigrants experienced significantly larger drops in house value than U.S.-born blacks and whites and Asian immigrants. These findings indicate that black immigrants housing options are more rather than less constrained than U.S.-born blacks after the housing market crash. Given that the bulk of black wealth is held in home equity, reduced house values may also have long-term consequences on black immigrants ability to make, maintain, and pass on wealth across generations.

Harrison, Rubinfeld (1978c) used a hedonic model to find out how house values were affected by air pollution in Boston, when other variables were taken into consideration. Their primary interest was in estimating willingness to pay for cleaner air. They chose to use 506 census tracts as units of observation because median house values for these units of aggregation were published in the 1970 census tabulations. Air pollution values from the model output, represented by nitrogen oxides (NOX), were available for 122 model output zones, of which only 96 fell within the study area defined by the chosen census tracts. These NOX values were then assigned proportionally to all census tracts falling within each model output zone. By re-aggregating the house value data to the 96 air pollution model output zones and re-fitting the regression model, the total impact of air pollution on house values, and thus the estimated willingness to pay, increases markedly. By extending the analysis to include spatially lagged independent variables, the total impact of air pollution on median house values, and consequently on the willingness to pay analysis, increases by over three times. Use of weighting to adjust the units of observation for the relative numbers of housing units behind each median house value further buttresses this conclusion. It is shown conclusively that the choice of observational units matters crucially for the estimation of economic parameters of interest in this data set.

This dissertation consists of three papers on health economics and labor economics. The first chapter investigates how workplace breastfeeding laws that require firms to provide a lactation room in the workplace affect the labor market outcomes of mothers of infants. Summers (1989) predicts that such mandated benefits depress the demand for mothers of infants and increase their supply and, thus, depress wages. However, I argue that such mandated benefits can increase both the demand for and the wages of mothers of infants who have a strong propensity to increase their work attachment. I exploit the plausibly exogenous variation in the timing of state mandates on workplace lactation support, analyzing data in the National Immunization Survey and the Current Population Survey. The second chapter investigates changes in the usage or preventive services among the Medicare beneficiaries following the Affordable Care Act’s “Medicare Preventive Benefits” reform, which eliminates cost-sharing for Medicare-covered preventive services that are recommended (rated A or B) by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Following intuition in Chetty et al. (2013) that individuals with no knowledge of certain policies behave as they would in the absence of the policy, I identify the impact of the reform by comparing the usage of all Medicare-covered preventive services across regions with different levels of knowledge of the reform. Exploiting the sample of beneficiaries that move across HRRs, I find that the knowledge of the reform is driven by the demand side factors rather than the supply side factors. The third chapter investigates the causal impact of physician counseling on obesity, exploiting the eligibility criterion of the Medicare’s Intensive Behavioral Therapy (IBT) for Obesity program, using a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity (RD) approach. I using the 5% random sample of the Medicare historical claim data and I inventively collect the BMI information using the ICD-9 diagnosis codes. I find that the intensive behavioral therapy is not effective in reducing obesity, and we are able to rule out confounding factors such as the use of bariatric procedures, massages, psychological therapy, smoking counseling, and the diagnoses of chronic conditions.

The present study examines the role of domestic migration in a massive demographic change in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) of Texas with a special focus on ethnic composition of migration flows. Specifically, using two datasets derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and American Community Survey (ACS), this project: (1) outlines demographic profiles of domestic inbound and outbound migrants; (2) identifies determinants of migration for different types of movers; and (3) predicts the change in the Index of Dissimilarity (IT) at the census-tract level in the RGV. Results indicate that: (1) compared to stayers, Anglos were overrepresented among all migrant categories in the RGV; (2) leavers were likely to be motivated by career/employment opportunities outside the Valley, while affordable housing in the Valley was the primary motivating factor for newcomers; (3) recently arrived Hispanic immigrants became more segregated. The most important finding is that, compared to Hispanics, Anglos were not ‘pushed’ from the Valley by a growing Mexican-American population but became more segregated.

Using March Current Population Survey data from 1994-2015, this paper examines the effect of paid parental leave in the United States on young women’s employment and earnings, and the family wage gap. The family wage gap is the difference in earnings between parents and non-parents. Paid parental leave laws in California and New Jersey are exploited for a quasinatural experiment using difference-in-difference-in-difference empirical models. Results show robust evidence that paid parental leave has negative impacts on young women’s employment and earnings. Estimated impacts vary by education level, with employment effects concentrated among young women without a bachelor’s degree, and earnings effects concentrated among young women with only some college experience. Additionally, results also show weakly suggestive evidence that paid parental leave decreases the family wage gap for both mothers and fathers.

Approximately 20 million individuals have gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA),1 including young adults covered under parental insurance, those purchasing private insurance on exchanges, and those covered through state Medicaid expansion. As of mid-2016, 10.4 million individuals had private insurance policies through the exchanges, of whom 84% had incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL) and received premium tax credits.2 Enrollment is projected at 13.8 million by the end of the open enrollment period in 2017.3 State Medicaid expansion covered individuals with incomes below 138% FPL and included childless adults who were ineligible for Medicaid prior to the ACA. By 2016, over 14.6 million adults were enrolled in Medicaid under the new adult category, of which 11 million were newly eligible under the ACA.4 Results of the 2016 US election suggest that the ACA may be repealed or modified. Health and health care use by individuals at risk of losing health insurance should be better understood.

This study explores the latest changes in Western European immigration to the United States by integrating several large databases: the U.S. census, the American Community Surveys, the European Social Survey, as well as the Human Development Index and Gini index. Findings show that the number of individuals born in Western Europe but with family origins elsewhere who have been immigrating to and settling in the United States is increasing. I divide the Western European population that immigrates to the United States into seven different subpopulations by their ancestries and explore the characteristics of these populations before and after immigrating to the United States. I also examine their relative success in terms of economic and labor outcomes in America, finding, for example, that some of the least advantaged immigrant groups have some of the best economic outcomes in the United States. The different self-selection and assimilation patterns among these immigrants have implications for U.S. public policy, which we identify and begin to explore.

The advancement of technology and the widespread usage of smart phones have made the collection of data from users easy and cost-effective, which allows the government, urban planner, and researchers to envision novel analysis. Along with the benefits, the shared data can bring serious privacy concerns as they reveal sensitive information about a user. Differential privacy has become an effective model for sharing privacy protected data with others. To facilitate users to protect the privacy of data before it leaves their personal devices, the concept of personal local differential privacy (PLDP) has been introduced for counting queries. We formulate PLDP for computing aggregates over numeric data. We present an efficient approach, private estimation of numeric aggregates (PENA), that guarantees PLDP of numeric data while computing an aggregate (e.g., the average or the minimum). We perform extensive experiments over a real dataset to show the effectiveness of PENA.

Single student mothers are growing in both absolute numbers and as a share of the college population. They often face significant financial and time-related obstacles that make it difficult for them to persist to graduation. Investing in programs and supports that target the needs of single mothers has the potential to improve their rates of college attainment, and increase earnings, which can lead to a range of multigenerational benefits. This briefing paper provides data on single mothers in postsecondary education and discusses the potential benefits of increasing their college attainment rates for individuals, families, and society as a whole.

The Current Population Survey (CPS) has been a major source of disability data for public policy and disability research for more than 30 years. Use of this same data, however, has been a source of criticism in forensic vocational rehabilitation settings when making claims about persons with disabilities and the nature of labor force participation. The aim of this study was two-fold. First, the study examined the six disability measures added to the CPS in 2008 to determine if they are both a reliable and stable method of describing disability over a period of two survey administrations in a 12-month period. Second, this study then assessed the impact of disability upon labor force participation. The findings demonstrate that the measures are effective, stable, and predictive. This research used a subset of the respondents to the longitudinal CPS Annual Social and Economic Supplement (more commonly known as the March Supplement); it included (N=11,721) respondents who indicated a positive answer to the disability questions in both survey months that the disability variables were measured. Descriptive analysis of expected demographic variable distributions supported the construct reliability of the measures, as well as provided some surprising results regarding higher-than-expected levels of income and wages among some persons with disabilities. Correlation analysis utilizing Kappa coefficients demonstrated that all six measures of types of disability in the CPS are stable across time, and Fisher Z transformations show that, among the six, measures of physical and mobility difficulties were the most stable. Measures of visual difficulties, while stable, are significantly less stable than the other disability measures. Logistic regression analysis indicated that all six disability measures have a significant predictive effect on the likelihood of employment of persons with disabilities, and a fully-controlled model including contextual variables (demographic characteristics) supported the conclusion that four of the six types of disability (physical disability and difficulties with remembering, mobility and vision) have independent statistically significant effects on employment. This study addresses some key criticisms of previous aggregate disability studies that relied on cross-sectional data, such as the widely-accepted criticism that cross-sectional studies over report the instance of long-term disability by capturing short-term impairment as well within a single survey administration. The findings reported of this research also contribute to the understanding of the statistical value of the aggregate measurement of disability and its potential usefulness to the field of forensic vocational rehabilitation.

A significant body of literature suggests that skin-tone segmentation is a salient characteristic of inter-group economic inequality in the United States. Yet, empirical investigations of this social phenomenon and its impact on labour-market outcomes for worker’s in the United States remains limited or focused on the impact of skin tone on wages. This article examines whether or not phenotypic variability in skin tone among workers influenced levels of job quality experienced during the recessionary era (2007–2012). Data from the Puerto Ricans and the Impact of the Great Recession Survey were used to estimate a Poisson Regression with Endogenous Treatment Effects to consider the impact that variations in skin tone have on levels of job quality experienced by workers. Findings suggest evidence of skin-tone labour-market segmentation, as workers with darker skin shades experienced lower levels of job quality than those workers with lighter skin tones within and across larger racial and ethnic groups. The results also suggest important regional variations in the experience of skin-tone labour-market segmentation in the United States. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of the findings for racial economic inequalities and patterns of social stratification in the contemporary United States.

У статті розглядається історико-географічне наповнення мережі Інтернет на прикладі іноземних веб-ресурсів. Розглядаються сучасні методи використання історичної географії в наукових дослідженнях. Подається короткий огляд джерел історичних карт в мережі Інтернет і пояснюються перспективи їх використання. Описуються результати аналітичного огляду спеціалізованих іноземних ресурсів, що розташовані в мережі Інтернет. Основна увага приділяється розробці стратегій і методів проведення історичних досліджень і пошуку ретроспективної інформації, а також розміщенню необхідних для роботи історика джерел і результатів наукових пошуків у мережі Інтернет. Визначено принципи та основні складові дослідницьких ресурсів історичного спрямування; сучасний стан і перспективи розвитку Інтернет-сервісів в історичній науці; вико . . .

This paper uses the American Community Survey to examine the previously overlooked fact that foreign STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates have much lower self-employment rates than their non-STEM counterparts, with an unconditional difference of 3.3 percentage points. We find empirical support for differing earnings opportunities as a partial explanation for this self-employment gap. High wages in STEM paid-employment combined with reduced earnings in self-employment make selfemployment less desirable for STEM graduates. High self-employment rates among other foreign-born workers partially reflect weak paid-employment opportunities. Public policy should encourage efficient use of worker skills rather than low-value business venture creation.

According to the theory of urban scaling, urban indicators scale with city size in a predictable fashion. In particular, indicators of social and economic productivity are expected to have a superlinear relation. This behavior was verified for many urban systems, but recent findings suggest that this pattern may not be valid for England and Wales (E&W), where income has a linear relation with city size. This finding raises the question of whether the cities of E&W exhibit any superlinear relation with respect to quantities such as the level of education and occupational groups. In this paper, we evaluate the scaling of educational and occupational groups of E&W to see if we can detect superlinear relations in the number of educated and better-paid persons. As E&W may be unique in its linear scaling of income, we complement our analysis by comparing it to the urban system of the United States (US), a country for which superlinear scaling of income has already been demonstrated. To make the two urban systems comparable, we define the urban systems of both countries using the same method and test the sensitivity of our results to changes in the boundaries of cities. We find that cities of E&W exhibit patterns of superlinear scaling with respect to education and certain categories of better-paid occupations. However, the tendency of such groups to have superlinear scaling seems to be more consistent in the US. We show that while the educational and occupational distributions of US cities can partly explain the superlinear scaling of earnings, the distribution leads to a linear scaling of earnings in E&W.

Recent evidence based on US data suggests that the quarter or month of birth (QOB or MOB) may be endogenous, since family characteristics can explain up to 50% of the effects of QOB on the education outcomes and earnings of adult males. In this study, based on a sample of one million Taiwanese siblings, we examine university admission at age 18 as our outcome variable and find that at school entry, the oldest (September born) children are 31-38% more likely to be admitted into university at age 18 than the youngest (August born) children, indicating strong seasonality in university admission. The inclusion of controls for family background is found to explain only a small portion of these effects, particularly for males. Given that such results are at odds with the recent US evidence, we revisit the US Census data and find that when racial differences are properly controlled for in the estimation, even a rich set of family characteristics is capable of explaining only a minor proportion of the QOB effects. Furthermore, using data from the US and Indonesia, we find that seasonal temperature variation is unlikely to be an important contributor to the US-Taiwan disparity. Our findings imply that the validity of using QOB or MOB as an instrumental variable may be dependent on the population being studied and the sample selected.

This dissertation consists of three essays on public good provision. The first chapter develops a model of charitys choice of fundraising method under two dimensions of asymmetric information, quality and purpose. The main implication is a separating equilibrium where higher-quality charities choose to distinguish themselves by using a traditional fundraising method, while lower-quality ones exploit a low-stakes, take-it- or leave-it, “checkout method. An empirical application reinforced that charities of lower quality are more likely to adopt the checkout method. Despite this, consumers still choose to give in the equilibrium, due to the small requested amount of checkout donations, which disincentivizes serious thinking. Although exploited by lower-quality charities, the checkout method, along with purpose uncertainty, has the potential to alleviate the free-riding problem associated with public good provision and is, therefore, welfare improving. The second chapter studies why corporations donate to charities and how their donations affect social welfare. I propose that firms make donations out of an image reason. In a model where two firms compete with each other, charitable donation could attract consumers and also signal firm overall social responsibility. I show that there exists an equilibrium where the high responsibility firm overdonates, resulting in a donation level closer to the socially optimal one. This leads to higher consumer welfare due to higher private good consumption as well as higher public good consumption when overdonation is prominent. Overall social welfare is enhanced. Empirical results support social image as an incentive for firms to donate. The third chapter examines people’s marginal willingness to pay for a change in local public good provision. We use a fixed effects hedonic model with MSA level data to study the effect of crime on local housing price. We explore the 1990s crime drop and use abortion data in 1970s and 1980s as an instrumental variable based on Donohue and Levitt (2001). One result we find is that a decrease in murder of 100 cases per 10,000 people increases housing price by 70%. We further translate this result into a value of a statistical case of homicide, which is around 0.4 million in 1999 dollars.

We analyze Medicare’s influence on private insurers’ payments for physicians’ services. Using a large administrative change in reimbursements for surgical versus medical care, we find that private prices follow Medicare’s lead. A $1.00 increase in Medicare’s fees increases corresponding private prices by $1.16. A second set of Medicare fee changes, which generates area-specific payment shocks, has a similar effect on private reimbursements. Medicare’s influence is strongest in areas with concentrated insurers and competitive physician markets, consistent with insurer-doctor bargaining. By echoing Medicare’s pricing changes, these payment spillovers amplify Medicare’s impact on specialty choice and other welfare-relevant aspects of physician practices.