The image of a young newly minted college graduate working behind the counter of a hip coffee shop has become a hallmark of the plight of college graduates following the Great Recession. Indeed, although economic conditions steadily improved through the recover, significant slack remained in the labor . . .

Nine states adopted caps on non-economic damages during the third medical malpractice reform wave from 2002–05, joining twenty-two other states with caps on non-economic or total damages. We study the effects of these reforms on physician supply. Across a variety of difference-in-differences (DiD), triple differences, and synthetic control methods, in both state- and county-level regressions, we find, with tight confidence intervals, no evidence that cap adoption leads to an increase in total patient care physicians, or in specialties that face high liability risk (with a possible exception for plastic surgeons), or in rural physicians.

Counterfactuals in fully specified structural models are the leading paradigm for analyzing systematic policy changes because they are immune to Lucas Critique. However, such counterfactuals are less credible whenever they lack robustness to variations in primitives across models that are observationally equivalent and reasonable a-priori. In this paper, I propose a methodology to construct policy counterfactuals in a set of linear models of dynamic stochastic economies that are both observationally equivalent under the benchmark policy and have identical counterfactual equilibrium under the alternative policy. These counterfactuals are immune to Lucas critique and robust to variations in primitives across models within the set. Then, I apply the methodology to quantify how fiscal unions contribute to regional stabilization. I focus on models where the federal government redistributes resources via a transfer policy rule in order to smooth local shocks. This rule is a function of local variables. Using US state-level data, I construct a counterfactual US economy without the rule in place. This counterfactual is identical in many fiscal union models with rich features, such as nominal rigidities and asset market incompleteness. I find that, during the Great Recession, fiscal integration significantly reduced cross-state employment differences by redistributing resources from well to poorly performing states. Finally, I discuss how the methodology can further be used to falsify a set of models, provided data before and after a policy change is available.

We exploit exogenous variation in years of completed college induced by draft-avoidance behavior during the Vietnam War to examine the impact of college on adult mortality. Our estimates imply that increasing college attainment from the level of the state at the 25th percentile of the education distribution to that of the state at the 75th percentile would decrease cumulative mortality for cohorts in our sample by 8 to 10 percent relative to the mean. Most of the reduction in mortality is from deaths due to cancer and heart disease. We also explore potential mechanisms, including differential earnings and health insurance.

The great divergence of America's rich from its middle class and poor has led some observers to see a country increasingly stratified by income and wealth, more so than by race. In this article, the first in a two-part series, we argue that this conclusion overlooks the persistent importance of the racial structure of inequality. A decomposition of income inequality between 1980 and 2010 using the Theil Index shows that inequality between racial groups accounts for a rising share of total income inequality over this period nationally and in most states. We also demonstrate that within-state trends in the between-race component of inequality are not fully accounted for by trends in income inequality and racial diversity per se. These findings lay the groundwork for a forthcoming companion piece in Social Science Quarterly that shows that between-race inequality is strongly linked to welfare policy outcomes in the United States.

We reconsider the role for human capital in accounting for cross-country income differences. Our contribution is to bring to bear new data on the pre- and postmigration labor market experiences of immigrants to the U.S. Immigrants from poor countries experience wage gains that are only 40 percent of the GDP per worker gap. This fact implies that country accounts for only 40 percent of cross-country income differences, while human capital accounts for the other 60 percent. Our work deals with two well-known problems in the literature. It controls for selection by using data on the wages of the same individual in two different countries. We provide evidence on the importance of skill transfer by comparing pre- and post-migration occupations. Occupational downgrading at migration is common; corrections for this imply that human capital may account for as little as 50 percent of cross-country income differences.

This paper compares the importance of English proficiency (EP) on earnings among the foreign-born immigrants from 1980 to 2000 and shows its importance varied over time. The key issue examined is changes in the impact of being in a minority-language enclave and its interactions with the return to EP. Results show that the negative effects of enclaves were the greatest in 1990 and such effects were significantly stronger among those fluent English speakers. The relationship between EP and the enclave effects is explored, which confirms their strong interaction in 1990. However, the evidence of fluent speakers large migrations from enclaves between 1990 and 2000 is not strong, as of the 24 foreign language groups, 13 showed decreases in fluency in enclaves relative to nonenclaves, while 11 showed increases in fluency in enclaves relative to non-enclaves. This may relate to non-wage benefits of living in enclaves, such as social benefits.

Family violence is a pervasive social issue, which warrants attention from policy makers. Theories such as nested ecological theory and general strain theory suggest that family violence increases during times of economic hardship. Even so, historical data from the most recent recession do not suggest an increase in family violence during this period of increased unemployment. Other theories, such as status inconsistency theory and household bargaining theory focus on intimate partner violence. These theories suggest that considering an intimate partner’s combination of employment statuses best predicts intimate partner violence. This dissertation utilizes crime data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) as well as unemployment data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to test the relationship between employment status and family violence. The results suggest that when a family experiences unemployment, they are more likely to experience family violence, repeat family violence, and a co-occurrence of family violence. Additionally, compared to employed couples, unemployed couples are most likely to experience violence. The results primarily support nested ecological theory and general strain theory, although additional results do support household bargaining theory and status inconsistency theory for low and high levels of education individuals respectively.

Before the mid-1980s, prenuptial agreements had tenuous legal standing in US state courts, which often refused to enforce them. In 1983 the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws promulgated legislation called the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (UPAA) that was designed to strengthen these agreements’ legal enforcement. Since then, 26 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the UPAA, rendering prenuptial contracts reliably enforceable in their courts. This paper uses data on UPAA adoption to investigate the effect that making prenuptial contracts legally enforceable has had on divorce rates. We find that rendering prenuptial agreements legally enforceable reduced divorce rates in America. We also present the first data on persons who use prenuptial agreements and the substance of those agreements in the United States.

This study examined direct area-level effects of 4 common child well-being outcomes across multiple scales of residential and school neighborhoods to identify relevant contexts for measuring neighborhood effects on elementary school children. Results from growth curve models indicate that neighborhoods operationalized as residential and school census tracts exerted similar effect sizes while neighborhoods operationalized as school attendance zones showed attenuated effects. These results suggest that it may be reasonable to interchange residential and school census tracts when examining contextual effects on child well-being. In addition, results suggest that school attendance zones represent conservative, theoretically sound neighborhoods for elementary school children.

This paper applies a migration choice model to examine what city amenities matter in attracting smart people. I find that young people with different education levels prefer cities with more population, a lower population density, more educated residents, a racially diverse population, lower income inequality, and a warmer winter. In contrast, less crime and better schools appear to be unimportant city amenities for each education group. Moreover, I also find that there is significant heterogeneity in the estimated marginal willingness to pay for some city amenities.

Studies of regional labor dynamics typically focus on net migration, but metropolitan areas in the U.S. are highly heterogenous in terms of gross migration. This paper documents the marked spatial heterogeneity in gross inflows and out flows of population and its persistence over time. I find that repeat migration - one-time migrants moving again - is important but insufficient to explain the large spatial differences in mobility. I then describe the characteristics of mobile versus immobile markets. Demographic differences are present, but small. Instead, locational differences in mobility are strongly associated with differences in their local labor markets, especially growth rates, income premia, and income dispersion. I argue that the observed income premia are consistent with superior human capital accumulation and that human capital accumulation and income dispersion are plausibly linked to higher rates of both in inflows and out flows.

We examine the role of ethnic networks in disability program take-up among working-age immigrants in the United States. Controlling for country of origin and area of residence fixed effects, immigrants residing amid a large number of co-ethnics are more likely to receive disability payments when their ethnic groups have higher take-up rates. Differences in satisfying the work history or income and asset requirements of the disability programs explain part of this relationship, but social norms also play an important role. Information sharing appears influential for Supplemental Security Income take-up but not for Social Security Disability Income.

Firms seeking to expand across borders look for advantages offered by the foreign location in conjunction with their own capabilities. Migrants by virtue of their inherited and acquired knowledge of the business and the institutional environment of their country of origin and their country of residence can be valuable sources of knowledge for firms. Firms can leverage this diversity in their workforce, which has been brought about by increased cross-border migration, to utilize the knowledge and connections of ethnic resources for achieving growth through cross-border corporate expansion.

The present state of the American military is often misunderstood. That misunderstanding leads to incorrect conclusions about the politics and voting behavior of service personnel. Given the known relationship between voter demographics and voter behavior, it is essential that the armed services demographics, particularly the characteristics of enlisted personnel, be presented to show how they may be different from those of officers or the general American voting population. This chapter will establish the “ground truth” of the present state of American military demographics, particularly those of enlisted personnel, using official data from Department of Defense (DOD) sources and supported by other data sources.

Does a migrant parents documentation status affect American offsprings educational outcomes? I exploit the exogenous discontinuity in likelihood of legal status generated by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which stated that immigrants proving continuous residence in the U.S. since 1/1/82 could legalize. In reduced form results using 2000 census data, I find American 14 year-olds whose parents were likely IRCA-eligible immigrants are 8.6 percentage points more likely to have reached high school than peers with likely ineligible immigrant parents. One key channel through which parental status seems to affect childrens education is through fathers labor market outcomes.

In the late 1930s, the Home Owners Loan Corporation, under the direction of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, constructed Residential Security Maps that graded the housing markets of over 200 cities according to a variety of criteria, including some based in harsh racial, ethnic, and class prejudice. Explanations for urban development have progressed over the course of the twentieth century to reflect not only changing urban conditions but changing ideology and, simultaneously, have the capacity to create the conditions that they describe. Burgesss ecological model was influential in the 1930s and shaped real estate officials and policy makers notions of neighborhood quality and risk. Policymakers approach to measuring risk with Residential Security Maps has generated much debate. Critiques to Jacksons traditional argument, that the physical maps were used by lenders to redline urban areas, have challenged the feasibility of his theory. Using primary government documents from the National Archives and various publications, I argue that the FHLBB was an influential voice in the development of neighborhood appraisal practices and in the normalization and legitimatization of racialized assessments of lending risk. Also, because of the conceptualization of real estate practices, the development of similar lending maps, and the sensitivity of the HOLC to local influences and conditions, the Residential Security Maps are an appropriate way to assess urban real estate practices in the 1930s. I ground the discussion of neighborhood risk onto Pittsburghs stratified and segregated geography of the 1930s. I developed a GIS-based framework to assess the impact of neighborhood appraisal practices on the social geography of Pittsburgh. I find that neighborhood appraisal had lasting and persistent impacts on the social geography of Pittsburgh as more positive conditions were concentrated in green and blue areas and more negative conditions were concentrated in red and yellow areas. I discuss the implications of these findings for urban housing, the complicity debate, neighborhood development policy, and the prospects for neighborhood equality.

Teenage childbearing is a common incident in developed countries. However, the occurrence of teenage births is much more likely in the United States than in any other industrialized coun- try. The majority of these births are delivered by female teenagers coming from low-income families. The hypothesis put forward here is that the welfare state (a set of redistributive in- stitutions) plays a significant role for teenage childbearing behavior. We develop an economic theory of parental investments and risky sexual behavior of teenagers. The model is estimated to fit stylized facts about income inequality, intergenerational mobility, and sexual behavior of teenagers in the United States. The welfare state institutions are introduced via tax and pub- lic education expenditure functions derived from U.S. data. In a quantitative experiment, we impose Norwegian taxes and/or education spending in the economic environment. The Nor- wegian welfare state institutions go a long way in explaining the differences in teenage birth rates between the United States and Norway.