Using a spatial hedonic growth model, this paper empirically assesses the roles of natural amenities and urban agglomeration economies in US regional growth patterns from 2000 to 2010. Natural amenities and urban agglomeration are measured using the USDA Economic Research Service county classication codes. The general nding is that natural amenities and urban agglomeration both inuenced regional growth. Yet, the natural amenity ranking is estimated to be positively related to increased productivity over the period rather than increased attractiveness to households. Urban agglomeration is positively related to increased amenity attractiveness to households. Within census regions, household natural amenity demand played a stronger role in non-metropolitan areas.

Changing racial/ethnic diversity along with economic growth have also drawn renewed public attention to growing income inequality and lack of economic well-being in the American society. This paper investigates one element of contemporary inequality – the income divide between the richest and the poorest population groups in the metropolises of the U.S. Southeast. This paper examines income divide across southern U.S. metropolises in 2000 and 2014, their change during 2000–2014, their variation across major races/ethnicities, and their relationships with important metropolitan characteristics such as diversity, intermixing, socio-economic status and built-environment attributes. Cartographic, ranking/matrix, and correlations analyses suggest that the largest, most diverse, most segregated, and those with a greater presence of better educated are the most income divided metropolises, whereas the small-to-mid-sized metropolises, with lesser educated population are less divided. The income divide has increased during 2000–2014 in a majority of these metropolises, and for all races/ethnicities, even though Whites and Asians are relatively better-off compared to overall population whereas Blacks and Hispanics lag behind.

Our main findings are as follows: Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are important in insuring all children, but young children especially. Of the nation’s 15.7 million young children in 2015, more relied on Medicaid/CHIP than on any other type of insurance coverage, with nearly half (48.8 percent, or 7.7 million) covered by Medicaid/CHIP. Just 3.5 percent of young children were uninsured in 2015, but 13.2 percent of parents of young children were uninsured, compared with 12.0 percent of parents of older children. Certain family characteristics, such as lower incomes, younger parents, and mixed immigration status, are more prevalent among families of young children, placing them at higher risk of lacking coverage. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was associated with increased coverage among young children and their families. In the two years after implementation of the major coverage provisions of the ACA, the uninsurance rate for parents of young children fell from 19.7 percent to 13.2 percent—a drop of nearly a third, reflecting gains in coverage through Medicaid and the new Marketplaces. Though the ACA's coverage provisions were not targeted at children, uninsurance also fell for young children; this drop was associated with the ACA's coverage expansions to parents, subsidies for Marketplace coverage, and enrollment and outreach efforts. Nearly half (48.8 percent) of young children had Medicaid/CHIP coverage and over a fifth (20.2 percent) of their parents had Medicaid in 2015—a higher share than among older children (41.9 percent) and their parents (16.7 percent). This represents an opportunity for Medicaid and CHIP programs to reach low-income children at critical early ages. Because young children and their parents rely on Medicaid at higher rates than older children and their parents, contractions of Medicaid funding would have outsize effects on families with young children. Maintenance of eligibility (MOE) protections are particularly important for children ages 3 and younger: if, in the absence of federal MOE protections, all states reduced Medicaid/CHIP eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), uninsurance would be as much as six times higher among young children with family incomes between 138 and 200 percent of FPL and three times higher among those with family incomes between 200 and 300 percent of FPL nationally. The insurance status of young children and their parents depends on where they live. In 2015, uninsurance among young children ranged from less than 1 percent in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts to more than 10 percent in Alaska, and varied even more widely among their parents, ranging from below 3 percent in Massachusetts and Hawaii to over 20 percent in Texas, Georgia, and Mississippi. Likewise, rates of Medicaid/CHIP coverage varied across states for both young children and their parents. In 2015, parents of young children in nonexpansion states were nearly twice as likely to be uninsured as parents in expansion states. This suggests that additional states could achieve coverage gains for parents of young children through Medicaid expansion, with potential positive impacts for both parents and their children.

The obesity epidemic is a global phenomenon, but it is worse in the United States than in most places. Obesity imposes significant individual and social costs and has become a focus of policy discussions. Many policy proposals relate to food and farms. What part have farm and food policies played as contributors to the problem? What part should they play in the government’s strategy to reduce obesity and its social costs? This book explores these questions, taking an economics perspective and using the tools of economics to analyze and evaluate the alternatives. The book is written for a broad general audience, including policymakers and the general public, and advanced undergraduate and graduate students across a range of disciplines.

One of the largest job providers in the U.S, is the construction industry, an industry that suffers from critical problems pertaining to a labor shortage. Yet the industry also struggles with insufficient interest and inconsistent participation from underrepresented demographic groups. To address the issue of workforce income inequality and bias, the industry must better understand the current situation regarding inequality; it needs to pinpoint some basic problems. To do so, analysts must scrutinize the following aspects: 1) the current differences within the construction workforce by race/ethnicity and gender with regards to the total employment and 2) the current disparity within the construction workforce by race/ethnicity and gender with regards to wage distribution. To help address this need, this study analyzes current differences within the construction workforce by race/ethnicity and gender. The study confirms that the gaps in employment and wage distribution for minorities still exist and that over the years the trend has remained steady. Furthermore, the study also identifies. . .

En este trabajo se analiza en qué medida impacta la política económica a los resultados electorales y en qué sentido se utiliza la racionalidad para premiar o castigar a los políticos de turno. En la pugna por conservar el poder político en las provincias argentinas, estos agentes analizan distintas variables económicas y políticas sobre la gestión, para luego determinar si el partido de gobierno merece o no permanecer en tal lugar. A partir de la base construida, se especifican cuatro regresiones alternativas que responden a dos modelos econométricos: uno que analiza a los gobernadores provinciales, y otro que se centra en presidentes y diputados nacionales en cada provincia.

Breast density reduces the sensitivity of mammography and is a moderate independent risk factor for breast cancer. Virginia is one of 21states that currently require providers to notify patients when they have dense breasts (1.). However, little is known about what women in the general population know and understand about breast density. This survey study assessed knowledge about breast density and about its impact on mammography and its relationship to breast cancer risk.

This paper contrasts two approaches to estimating quantile regression models: traditional semi-parametric methods and partially adaptive estimators using flexible probability density functions (pdfs). While more general pdfs could have been used, the skewed Laplace was selected for pedagogical purposes. Monte Carlo simulations are used to compare the behavior of the semi-parametric and partially adaptive quantile estimators in the presence of possibly skewed and heteroskedastic data. Both approaches accommodate skewness and heteroskedasticity which are consistent with linear quantiles; however, the partially adaptive estimator considered allows for non linear quantiles and also provides simple tests for symmetry and heteroskedasticity. The methods are applied to the problem of estimating conditional quantile functions for wages corresponding to different levels of education.

This paper examines the impact of residential density and mixed land use on crime using a high-resolution dataset from Chicago over the period 2008-2013. I employ a novel instrumental variable strategy based on the citys 1923 zoning code. I find that commercial uses lead to more street crime in their immediate vicinity, particularly in more walkable neighborhoods. However, this effect is strongly offset by population density; dense mixed-use areas are safer than typical residential areas. Additionally, much of the commercial effect is driven by liquor stores and late-hour bars. I discuss the implications for zoning policy.

Today, women constitute 42% of the world’s labour force and their significance for economic growth and reducing gender inequality has been extensively investigated.1 Women’s work has never been a linear process of extending participation. Instead, female labour force participation (FLFP) has extended and curtailed throughout time. To expound the forces driving these fluctuations, it is imperative to approach this issue from a long-term historical perspective. This dissertation studies a period of contracting FLFP: the nineteenth-century Netherlands.

This paper documents a large educational gradient in traffic fatality rates and investigates its source. Compared to individuals with a college education, those with at most a high school diploma are more than four times as likely to die in a traffic accident, a gradient exceeding that for all-cause mortality. More educated individuals’ health behaviors, such as drinking or seat belt use, support this gradient. A panel analysis of data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System indicates that this gradient is, to a small degree, causal, particularly for males, who cause most traffic accidents.

It was estimated that there were 1.9 million Hispanic women-owned firms in the United States in 2016, employing 550,400 workers and generating $97 billion in revenues.1 The number of Hispanic women entrepreneurs grew at a faster rate than any other group – 137 percent between 2007 and 2016. 2 With the United States Census Bureau projecting the number of Hispanic women to nearly double by 2050 and for Hispanic people to become the number-one minority group in the United States, the growth rate in the number of Hispanic women-owned businesses is expected to continue to surge.3 However, Hispanic women are underrepresented as entrepreneurs. While their share of the population is 8.3 percent, their share of businesses is 5.3 percent.4 In addition, on average, Hispanic women-owned businesses are significantly smaller than businesses owned by other major racial and ethnic groups. According to the 2012 Survey of Business Owners and Self-Employed Persons (SBO), Hispanic women-owned businesses generated on average $54,000 in revenue per year compared to businesses owned by their White women counterparts ($171,000)5 and businesses owned by White men ($716,000).6 Employer firms represented five percent of Hispanic women-owned firms while employer firms represent 12 percent of White women-owned firms. White men-owned firms were five times more likely to be employers than Hispanic women-owned firms.7 Because of the recent and projected increase in their numbers, Hispanic women entrepreneurs are an untapped engine of economic growth. Understanding what sets these firms apart from others is key to unlocking their potential. If revenues generated by Hispanic women-owned firms matched those currently generated by other women-owned business, they could add $155 billion8 in revenues and 80,000 new jobs to the U.S. economy

Accessibility is a key objective of regional planning, one requiring the coordination of transportation and land use. Several metropolitan planning organizations in the United States and Europe have started to incorporate accessibility metrics into their evaluation of future regional scenarios. This paper describes changes in accessibility to employment by auto and transit for four contrasting metropolitan areas between 2000 and 2010. The effect of changing residential locations, changing employment locations, and changing travel speeds on accessibility change is decomposed and analyzed. Residential locations are generally shifting toward low-accessibility locations, degrading regional accessibility. Shifting employment locations have differential effects across metros, improving the accessibility of central locations in some metros while improving the accessibility of peripheral locations in others. Travel speeds also show strongly contrasting patterns across metros, with speed-related accessibility benefits concentrated in high-density locations for some metros (Chicago), while low-density locations are the primary beneficiary in other metros (Charlotte and St. Louis).

The reversal of the gender gap in education has reshaped the U.S. marriage market. Drawing on data from the 1980 U.S. Census and the 2008-2012 American Community Surveys, the author used log-linear models to examine gender asymmetry in educational and income assortative mating among newlyweds. Between 1980 and 2008-2012, educational assortative mating reversed from a tendency for women to marry up to a tendency for women to marry down in education, whereas the tendency for women to marry men with higher incomes than themselves persisted. Moreover, in both time periods, the tendency for women to marry up in income was generally greater among couples in which the wife's education level equaled or surpassed that of the husband than among couples in which the wife was less educated than the husband. The author discusses the implications of the rising female advantage in education for gender change in heterosexual marriages.

Background: Variation exists in cardiac arrest (CA) survival among institutions. We sought to determine institutional-level characteristics of academic medical centers (AMCs) associated with CA survival. Methods: We examined discharge data from AMCs participating with Vizient clinical database–resource manager. We identified cases using ICD-9 diagnosis code 427.5 (CA) or procedure code 99.60 (CPR). We estimated hospital-specific risk-standardized survival rates (RSSRs) using mixed effects logistic regression, adjusting for individual mortality risk. Institutional and community characteristics of AMCs with higher than average survival were compared with those with lower survival. Results: We analyzed data on 3,686,296 discharges in 2012, of which 33,700 (0.91%) included a CA diagnosis. Overall survival was 42.3% (95% CI 41.8–42.9) with median institutional RSSR of 42.6% (IQR 35.7-51.0; Min-Max 19.4–101.6). We identified 28 AMCs with above average survival (median RSSR 61.8%) and 20 AMCs with below average survival (median RSSR 26.8%). Compared to AMCs with below average survival, those with high CA survival had higher CA volume (median 262 vs.119 discharges, p = 0.002), total beds (722 vs. 452, p = 0.02), and annual surgical volume (24,939 vs. 13,109, p<0.001), more likely to offer cardiac catheterization (100% vs. 72%, p = 0.007) or cardiac surgery (93% vs. 61%, p = 0.02) and cared for catchment areas with higher household income ($61,922 vs. $49,104, p = 0.004) and lower poverty rates (14.6% vs. 17.3%, p = 0.03). Conclusion: Using discharge data from Vizient, we showed AMCs with higher CA and surgical case volume, cardiac catheterization and cardiac surgery facilities, and catchment areas with higher socioeconomic status had higher risk-standardized CA survival.

This dissertation studies three policy-oriented macroeconomic questions. The first chapter examines whether traditional monetary policy in the U.S. becomes less effective when foreign governments accumulate large amounts of Treasury debt. I estimate a macro-finance model and find foreign official purchases have shifted the entire yield curve down. This suggests the increasing presence of international factors in U.S. financial markets influences the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy. The second chapter asks why low-skilled men are less likely to be employed relative to high-skilled men and why this differential has increased since the 1970s. I build and calibrate a labor-search model and find a demand shift and job separations are the main drivers of employmentinequality, while a supply shift had no robust effects, and search frictions actually reduced employment inequality since the 1970s. The third and final chapter studies why wages of newly hired workers are more pro-cyclical than wages of workers who do not switch jobs. We construct a novel measure of occupational mismatch by comparing a newly hired worker’s current skill profile to his previous skill profile. Including our measure of occupational mismatch in standard wage regressions can account for half of the new hire wage cyclicality previously documented in the literature.

The main motivation of this research is to contribute to the body of work that challenges the mainstream approach to household borrowing. This contribution is twofold. First of all, in this research history matters, unlike in ahistorical utility analyses. This is accomplished by presenting data that goes back to the 1980s to support the hypothesis formed. This way, it is possible to see if there has been a significant shift in the relationships investigated. Second, this research draws on the literature from various fields such as psychology, medicine, sociology, and law as well as economics and finance. This allows the author to make a more holistic analysis of household borrowing without ignoring the institutional, social, and physiological dimensions of the issue.

Objective: The goal of this research was to identify the fraction of deaths attributable to diabetes in the United States. Research Design and Methods: We estimated population attributable fractions (PAF) for cohorts aged 3084 who were surveyed in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) between 1997 and 2009 (N = 282,322) and in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2010 (N = 21,814). Cohort members were followed prospectively for mortality through 2011. We identified diabetes status using self-reported diagnoses in both NHIS and NHANES and using HbA1c in NHANES. Hazard ratios associated with diabetes were estimated using Cox model adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and smoking status. Results: We found a high degree of consistency between data sets and definitions of diabetes in the hazard ratios, estimates of diabetes prevalence, and estimates of the proportion of deaths attributable to diabetes. The proportion of deaths attributable to diabetes was estimated to be 11.5% using self-reports in NHIS, 11.7% using self-reports in NHANES, and 11.8% using HbA1c in NHANES. Among the sub-groups that we examined, the PAF was highest among obese persons at 19.4%. The proportion of deaths in which diabetes was assigned as the underlying cause of death (3.33.7%) severely understated the contribution of diabetes to mortality in the United States. Conclusion: Diabetes may represent a more prominent factor in American mortality than is commonly appreciated, reinforcing the need for robust population-level interventions aimed at diabetes prevention and care.

Introduction: The aims of this study were to identify counties in the United States (US) with high rates of lung cancer mortality, and to characterize the associated community-level factors while focusing on particulate-matter pollution. Methods: We performed a descriptive analysis of lung cancer deaths in the US from 2004 through 2014. We categorized counties as “clustered” or “non-clustered” – based on whether or not they had high lung cancer mortality rates - using novel geospatial autocorrelation methods. We contrasted community characteristics between cluster categories. We performed logistic regression for the association between cluster category and particulate-matter pollution. Results: Among 362 counties (11.6%) categorized as clustered, the age-adjusted lung cancer mortality rate was 99.70 deaths per 100,000 persons (95%CI: 99.1-100.3). Compared with non-clustered counties, clustered counties were more likely in the south (72.9% versus 42.1%, P < 0.01) and in non-urban communities (73.2% versus 57.4, P < 0.01). Clustered counties had greater particulate-matter pollution, lower education and income, higher rates of obesity and physical inactivity, less access to healthcare, and greater unemployment rates (P < 0.01). Higher levels of particulate-matter pollution (4th quartile versus 1st quartile) were associated with two-fold greater odds of being a clustered county (adjusted OR: 2.10; 95%CI: 1.23–3.59). Conclusion: We observed a belt of counties with high lung mortality ranging from eastern Oklahoma through central Appalachia; these counties were characterized by higher pollution, a more rural population, lower socioeconomic status and poorer access to healthcare. To mitigate the burden of lung cancer mortality in the US, both urban and rural areas should consider minimizing air pollution.

This paper exploits the history of Reconstruction after the American Civil War to estimate the causal effect of politician race on public finance, using the number of free blacks in the antebellum era (1860) as an instrumental variable (IV) for black political leaders during Reconstruction. Free blacks were particularly overrepresented as officeholders, but their within-state distribution before the Civil War was unrelated to local preferences for redistribution, electoral outcomes, the tenure of black elected officials, political competition, or voter education campaigns. IV estimates show that an additional black official increased per capita county tax revenue by $0.20, more than an hour’s wage at the time. Consistent with the stated policy goals of black officials, I find positive effects of black politicians on land tenancy and show that exposure to black politicians increased black literacy by 6% and decreased the black-white literacy gap by more than 7%. The effects were not persistent, however, disappearing entirely once black politicians were removed from office at Reconstruction’s end. These results suggest that politician race has large effects on public finance and individual outcomes over and above electoral preferences.