We study the effect of state medical marijuana laws (MMLs) on disability claiming. MMLs allow qualifying patients to legally use marijuana for medical purposes. We examine Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applications, new beneficiaries, and terminations. We use administrative data from the Social Security Administration coupled with a differences-in-differences design to study this question. We find that MML adoption increases application and new beneficiary rates, and reduces termination rates, although new beneficiary rate estimates are somewhat imprecise.

Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) have collected data on health issues for women of childbearing age since the mid-1980s, with particular emphasis on factors affecting reproduction. Despite the richness, geographic range, and temporal scope of DHS data, changes over time and country/samplespecific variations in questions and codes have discouraged comparative analyses and sometimes produced inadvertent errors. To facilitate analyses of DHS data across time and space, researchers at the Minnesota Population Center have created IPUMS-DHS (www.idhsdata.org). Modeled on IPUMS census data integration, IPUMS-DHS imposes consistent variable names and codes, supplies extensive online documentation, and freely disseminates customized multi-sample datasets over the Internet. At this writing, IPUMS-DHS includes data on women of childbearing age and their young children and births for India and many African countries. Our poster illustrates the potential for comparative research using IPUMS-DHS by presenting trends in fertility and fecundity for multiple African countries, from their earliest to their most recent DHS samples. Fertility is measured by the national total fertility rate; fecundity is here defined as the percent of women of childbearing age who are not pregnant, breastfeeding, sterile, or menopausal, using DHS variable V623.

This research explores the economic causes and consequences of language structures. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that variations in pre-industrial geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher returns to agricultural investment, gender gaps in agricultural productivity, and the emergence of hierarchical societies, are at the root of existing cross-language variations in the structure of the future tense and the presence of grammatical gender and politeness distinctions. Moreover, the research suggests that while language structures have largely reflected past human experience and ancestral cultural traits, they have independently affected human behavior and economic outcomes.

This paper explores World War II's effect on female educational attainment. First, I analyze whether there is a link between World War II and female educational attainment. I then assess two possible channels through which the war could have affected a woman's likelihood of graduating from high school and from college: the marriage market and the labor market. I find that World War II is correlated with an increased probability of graduating from college for white women, but there is little to no correlation for non-white women. I also find little correlation between World War II and the probability of graduating from high school for white and nonwhite women alike. It is likely that effects of the marriage and labor markets together created a small net effect on female education.

The HOPE scholarship program, created by the state of Georgia in 1993, is the first large scale, merit-based higher educational scholarship program in the United States. In this research, I use border analysis and difference-in-differences estimates to test the hypothesis that the HOPE scholarship program attracts interstate education migration from Georgia’s neighboring states. My results support my hypothesis. I find that border areas in Georgia attract high school seniors from the adjacent areas in border states that do not have the HOPE scholarship program. In addition, I use the IPUMS dataset to provide further analysis to the effect of the HOPE scholarship program on interstate migration for entire states rather than for border areas. I find that for a family with high school children, Georgia is the most popular destination state in the inter-state migration within the southeastern area in the period of 1995-2000, because the HOPE scholarship reduces tuition in Georgia significantly.

The goal of much of the research in disaster logistic models is to position facilities to meet a specific demand. These types of models locate distribution facilities based on relative weights of locations determined by demand. These types of models are similar in nature to classical location theory models such as p – median and or coverage type models. The ultimate goal of these types of models is to cover or service as much of the anticipated demand as possible. However, there is a growing consensus that the population or number of households within a specific geographical area is not necessarily the only weighting factor in determining need and/or demand for disaster relief. In an era after disaster events, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, there . . .

The stock of undocumented Mexican migrants into the U.S. was on the rise between 2000 and 2007 and started to decline from 2008 onwards. In this paper, we discuss the development of a modeling framework for economic analysis of undocumented Mexico to U.S. migration, taking into account the implicit taxation of wages received by undocumented migrants. We attempt to historically validate our CES nested model against observed price and quantity responses of inputs (including undocumented migrant labor) and aggregate output in the economy during the 2000-2007 period. In the process we examine model performance under a range of parametric values for factor supply and substitution elasticities and provide a frame of reference for comparing existing literature estimates of these parameters. We find that as we move closer to matching the historical record on quantity change of undocumented labor usage we move farther from our targeted responses in prices.

While many scholars have investigated whether election day registration (EDR) boosts turnout and who is influenced by it, empirical evidence is still mixed. Utilizing within-state registration rule difference in Illinois, this paper examines the effects of EDR on turnout rate, registration rate, and partisan composition of voters. In 2016 elections, counties in Illinois (i) with a population over 100,000 or (ii) using electronic poll books needed to allow their citizens to register to vote on election day at every precinct, while other counties only had to adopt the rule at one precinct per county. Analyses using randomization inference approach to regression discontinuity design reveal that EDR exerted small or no effects on turnout rate and registration rate (0-3%, statistically insignificant) but it seems to have somewhat increased the Democratic vote share (6-12%, statistically significant in most of the cases).

Female genital cutting (FGC) practices, which affect nearly 100 million girls and women worldwide (Yoder PS, Wang S, and Johansen E, Stud Family Plann 44(2):189204, 2013), cause immediate and long-term suffering. Fortunately, there has been a dramatic reduction in FGC in recent decades, and the downward trend is continuing, alleviating pain and negative health consequences for future generations of girls. The lessons learned from the successful case of FGC reduction have implications for reducing other types of suffering. We begin this essay with some background on FGC: what it is, where it occurs, its health consequences, why and how it is perpetuated, and changes in its prevalence over time. We then elaborate how reductions in FGC became possible, first, in terms of social policies adopted at the international level and, second, in terms of health, development, and education programs at the community level. Finally, we outline the ways in which the characteristics of FGC overlap with the characteristics of many forms of suffering, making FGC change a promising model for successful reforms in other areas.

The temporal persistence of crime hot spots is recognized as a valuable indicator of consistent problem areas. The current literature has not adequately addressed the mechanisms that perpetuate or interrupt persistent crime hot spots. Investigating the persistence of violent crime hot spots in Columbus, Ohio, from 1994 to 2002, this study fills a gap in the literature by identifying neighborhood structural correlates that drive the persistence of hot spots. Specifically, this study identifies yearly crime hot spots, and estimates an ordered probit model to explore the neighborhood structural determinants. The results indicate that socio-economic factors, identified from a synthesis of social disorganization theory and routine activity theory, significantly correlate with persistent patterns of violent crime hot spots. This gives evidence that a combination of the two ruling spatial theories of crime provides an applicable framework for understanding the temporal dimension of violent crime hot spots. By identifying the factors that contribute to the persistence of hot spots of crime, insights gained from the results can help to inform focused crime prevention efforts.

From the 1970s to the early 2000s, the United States experienced an epochal wave of low-skilled immigration. Since the Great Recession, however, U.S. borders have become a far less active place when it comes to the net arrival of foreign workers. The number of undocumented immigrants has declined in absolute terms, while the overall population of low-skilled foreign-born workers has remained stable. We examine how the scale and composition of low-skilled immigration in the United States has evolved over time and how relative income growth and demographic shifts in the Western Hemisphere have contributed to the recent immigration slowdown. Because major source countries for U.S. immigration are now seeing and will continue to see weak labor-supply growth relative to the United States, future immigration rates of young low-skilled workers appear unlikely to rebound, whether or not U.S. immigration policies tighten further.

This thesis compares labor market outcomes of foreign born Mexican-American immigrants and native born United States citizens of all races within states that border Mexico and states which do not border Mexico. It also examines the effect of Hispanic heritage for U.S.-born “second generation” immigrants, and racial composition upon the earning potential of U.S. workers. Following theory about media agenda settings from sociology and communications literature, this study seeks to understand the effect of geography (which is correlated with exposure to immigrant populations, exposure to immigration related media, etc.) within the United States upon discriminatory hiring practices. Using IPUMS USA data from 1920 – 2015, I compare results across four broad time periods which correspond to different immigration and hiring policies in the United States: the pre-WWII era, the Bracero Program era, the Post-Bracero Program era, and the current era which is associated with legislative attempts to curb Mexican migrant workers. Results indicate that there is indeed evidence for labor market discrimination, reflected in disparities in income and unemployment outcomes. The gap in wages and employment opportunities worsens over time, as foreign born Mexican-American immigrants are increasingly disadvantaged. This effect is larger in states that share a border with Mexico than in states which do not.

The American labor market is increasingly unequal, characterized by extraordinary returns to work at the top of the market but rising precarity and instability at the bottom of the market. In addition to low wages, short tenure, few benefits, and non-standard hours, many jobs in the retail and food service industries are characterized by a great deal of instability and unpredictability in work schedules. Such workplace practices may have detrimental effects on workers. However, the lack of existing suitable data has precluded empirical investigation of how such scheduling practices affect the health and wellbeing of workers and their families. We describe an innovative approach to survey data collection from targeted samples of service-sector workers that allows us to collect previously unavailable data on scheduling practices and on health and wellbeing. We then use these data to show that exposure to unstable and unpredictable schedules is negatively associated with worker sleep quality, happiness, and psychological wellbeing and that these associations are mediated by both household economic insecurity and work-family conflict.

Little is known about why poor job outcomes for workers with disabilities (WD) persist. Hence, the aim of this study was to combine and extend human capital, social capital, and multiple jeopardy advantage theories to develop and test a comprehensive model of the processes explaining job outcomes for WD. Data from the 2010 US National Health Interview Survey (N=3,887) and O*Net were analyzed to investigate the extent to which disability status (i.e., WD with work limitations, WD with no work limitations, or non-disabled workers [NDW]) relates to four types of work outcomes (i.e., annual compensation, employment status, job insecurity, and workplace harassment) indirectly through human and social capital resources and whether there are gender or racial/ethnic differences in these relationships. Results revealed that WD received lower returns than NDW on comparable levels of career-related capital resources, especially health-related human capital and, to a lesser extent, social capital and education- and training-related human capital. Thus, evidence was supportive of discrimination, as equivalent social and productivity-related characteristics and qualifications yielded less favorable job outcomes for WD than for . . .

The authors present a simple, two-period model of human capital accumulation on the job and through college attainment. They use a calibrated version of the model to explain the observed flatten- ing of the life-cycle earnings profiles of two cohorts of workers. The model accounts for more than 55 percent of the observed flattening for high school-educated and for college-educated workers. Two channels generate the flattening in the model: selection (or higher college attainment) and a higher skill price for the more recent cohort. Absent selection, the model would have accounted for no flattening for high school-educated workers and about 23 percent of the observed flattening for college-educated workers.

Was intergenerational economic mobility high in the early twentieth century in the United States? Comparisons of mobility across time are complicated by the constraints of the data available. I match fathers from the Iowa State Census of 1915 to their sons in the 1940 Federal Census, the first state and federal censuses with data on income and years of education. With this linked sample, I can estimate intergenerational mobility between 1915 and 1940 based on earnings, education, occupation, and names. Across all these measures, I document broad consensus that rates of persistence were low in Iowa in the early twentieth century. Within my sample, rural sons from Iowa had more intergenerational mobility than their urban peers and the grandchildren of the foreign-born were more mobile than the grandchildren of the native-born.

Individuals with disabilities often have limitations that require care from others to increase functioning and facilitate activities of daily living. Despite these care-receiving needs, evidence suggests people with disabilities are also care givers. This study uses the 20082015 American Time Use Survey to examine the association between the presence of sensory, mental or cognitive, physical, or multiple limitations and the likelihood and intensity of time spent in primary child care, secondary child care, adult care, care of nonhouseholders, and support care (housework). Net of socioeconomic characteristics, the authors do not observe consistent differences in predicted child care time by disability status, although men with disabilities spend less time in care to adults and nonhouseholders. The largest difference in predicted care time by disability status occurs in support care. Overall, the results challenge the traditional focus on people with disabilities as only beneficiaries of care to document their role as benefactors.

This brief uses data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to assess changes in Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage for children between 2008 and 2015.

Scarce land, rigid building rules, and a thriving economy that attracts new workers have made New York one of the world’s most expensive cities in which to rent or buy a home. Low-income New Yorkers suffer most from the lack of affordable market housing. Many cram into tiny apartments. Others seek accommodation in the city’s vast public-housing system—spanning 176,066 apartments in 326 developments and home to one in 14 New Yorkers. Here, too, low-income city dwellers are ill-served. Average waiting times for a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) unit stretch to 7.5 years. Those who endure the wait face high crime, dilapidated buildings, and scant access to supermarkets and other stores. NYCHA does little to ensure that its scarce public resources are fairly shared. Despite a shortage of units, NYCHA residents can stay indefinitely. Many do: the average tenant has lived in public housing for more than 18 years. Nor do residents face pressure to leave when they rise out of poverty. More than one in ten NYCHA households have incomes greater than the New York City median ($53,000). Low turnover is not the only problem. More than a quarter of NYCHA residents live in apartments so spacious that bedrooms outnumber occupants. Meanwhile, some groups are sharply underrepresented. Asians, for instance, account for 11.1% of the city’s households in poverty but make up only 4.7% of NYCHA households. To create more equitable public housing, NYCHA should, among other things, prioritize outreach to underserved communities, as well as adopt policies that encourage a higher rate of turnover, particularly among tenants whose rising incomes place them firmly in the middle class.

The island of Barbados, settled in the 1620s as an English colony, grew swiftly to become a major economic node in the Atlantic trade network by producing sugar and rum. By the early 1700s, the island was home to about seventy-five thousand people, a rich tapestry of humanity from diverse cultures: white settlers, planters, and servants from England and Ireland, merchants from the Netherlands and Brazil, and a demographic majority of enslaved Africans. To track this colonial cocktail, five major maps produced between 1657 and 1736 are examined in conjunction with two incomplete census records from 1679 and 1715 and a database of information of indentured servants from the late 1600s. Linkages across time and space, drawing on names of individual people and plantations, are explored using modern geospatial inquiries. Patterns of persistent habitation across the decades are visualized, as well as movement onto and off the island. The efficacy and accuracy of these historical records in a modern digital and geospatial context are considered throughout. The results update and augment the representation of Barbados from the maps and written records, demonstrating the massive influence that Barbados had on the “Sweet Atlantic” network of trade through the development of sugar as a cultural . . .