We use CDC microdata on cause of death and CPS data on populations by age to create suicide rates for five-year age groups at five-year intervals, further cross-classified by race/ethnicity, education, and marital status. We examine the suicide history 1990-2010 of U.S. birth cohorts, net of age and cohort linear trends. These de-trended cohort deviations follow familiar patterns: most pronounced in the Baby Boom, least pronounced during the Baby Bust, they illustrate the so-called Easterlin effect. Suicide rates for women show similar patterns as suicide patterns for men. We show persistence of those effects net of micro factors (especially education and marriage) implicated in suicide behavior and correlated at the macro level with relative cohort size. Analysis of suicide patterns over time for high- and low-educated men and women shows that white men with low education face a sharp increase, significantly above the linear time trends, in suicide rates among cohorts born between 1955 and 1970. This bump is mostly unrelated to secular trends of increasing average educational attainment rates, at least if no interaction between age and cohort is involved in the explanation. No obvious pattern related to cohort size is found for African-American high- and low-educated men, which makes sense given the very different historical dynamics for this minority sub-population.

Educational resilience is often linked to educational success of various immigrant youth including Black immigrants despite the challenges they face. However, few studies have explored the factors that promote and/or constrain educational resilience and academic achievement of Black immigrants. To address this gap, the current article focuses on the educational resilience and academic achievement of Ghanaian-born immigrants (N = 60) attending urban high schools in the United States. Results indicate that self-regulation, technology, religious faith, past experiences, parental support, resources, and safety issues played an important role. Implications and recommendations for educators and policymakers are discussed.

Thanks to the availability of new historical census sources and advances in record linking technology, economic historians are becoming big data genealogists. Linking individuals over time and between databases has opened up new avenues for research into intergenerational mobility, the long run effects of early life conditions, assimilation, discrimination, and the returns to education. To take advantage of these new research opportunities, scholars need to be able to accurately and efficiently match historical records and produce an unbiased dataset of links for analysis. I detail a standard and transparent census matching technique for constructing linked samples that can be replicated across a variety of cases. The procedure applies insights from machine learning classification and text comparison to record linkage of historical data. My method teaches an algorithm to replicate how a well trained and consistent researcher would create a linked sample across sources. I begin by extracting a subset of possible matches for each record, and then use training data to tune a matching algorithm that attempts to minimize both false positives and false negatives, taking into account the inherent noise in historical records. To make the procedure precise, I trace its application to an example from my own work, linking children from the 1915 Iowa State Census to their adult-selves in the 1940 Federal Census. In addition, I provide guidance on a number of practical questions, including how large the training data needs to be relative to the sample.

Does financial deregulation lead to unintended consequences at the family level by affecting fundamental choices such as the decision to have children? Using household-level data and a ruling by a U.S. federal regulator that created geographical heterogeneity in access to mortgage credit, this paper shows that financial deregulation leads to an increase in homeownership, which in turn leads to an increase in the propensity to have a child. Households of childbearing age who are fully exposed to this financial deregulation event increase their probability of both purchasing a home and having a child by 4 to 5 percentage points. The documented increases in births are not driven by housing wealth, financial wealth, or employment outcomes that might be affected by the deregulation event. Rather, they seem to be driven by an increase in access to space and residential stability spurred by the transition to homeownership. An analysis of the six years after the deregulation event suggests that part of the documented effect is a shift in the timing to have children.

Female labor force participation is mainly driven by the value of women’s market wages versus the value of their non-market time. Labor force participation by women varies considerably across countries. To understand this international variation, one must further consider differences across countries in institutions, non-economic factors such as cultural norms, and public policies. Such differences provide important insights into what actions countries might take to further increase women’s participation in the labor market.

This study aims to examine the spatio-temporal dynamics of Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) prevalence in four contiguous states of Midwestern United States, and to determine the impact of environmental and socio–economic factors associated with this disease. Bayesian hierarchical models were used to quantify space and time only trends and spatio–temporal interaction effect in the case reports submitted to the state health departments in the region. Various socio–economic, environmental and climatic covariates screened a priori in a bivariate procedure were added to a main–effects Bayesian model in progressive steps to evaluate important drivers of RMSF space-time patterns in the region. Our results show a steady increase in RMSF incidence over the study period to newer geographic areas, and the posterior probabilities of county-specific trends indicate clustering of high risk counties in the central and southern parts of the study region. At the spatial scale of a county, the prevalence levels of RMSF is influenced by poverty status, average relative humidity, and average land surface temperature (>35°C) in the region, and the relevance of these factors in the context of climate–change impacts on tick–borne diseases are discussed.

In the Federal criminal justice system, large di¤erences in sentencing outcomes exist be- tween Hispanic and White defendants. A candidate explanation is ingroup bias causing ‘outsiders’ (Hispanics) to be treated di¤erently to ‘insiders’ (Whites). To probe this explana- tion we exploit 9-11 as an exogenously timed cue heightening the salience of insider-outsider di¤erences in American society. Based on linked administrative data that covers criminal cases from time of arrest through to sentencing, we use a DiD research design based on de- fendants all of whom were arrested pre 9-11, but some were su¢ciently far advanced along the timeline so as to come up for sentencing pre 9-11, while others had only just entered the timeline prior to 9-11, and so were sentenced post 9-11. We document that among those sentenced post 9-11, Hispanic-White judicial sentencing di¤erentials are further exacerbated relative to these sentenced pre 9-11, while Black-White sentencing di¤erentials are una¤ected. Our linked administrative data and research design also allows us to document the di¤er- ential treatment of Hispanic defendants by prosecutors in pre-sentencing stages of the CJS, such as with regards to the initial o¤ense charges they set. Finally, we collate bibliographical information on judges and document that in districts with a higher proportion of Hispanic judges, the Hispanic-White sentencing di¤erential is signi...cantly reduced, consistent with judges’ ingroup biases driving their sentencing decisions. Our results provide insights into the magnitude, channels and potential origins of Hispanic-White sentencing di¤erentials in the Federal criminal justice system.

Based on the differences in average incomes between male and female nurses, it is expected that the coefficient on the variable female will be negative. In other words, it is expected that there is a significant difference between male and female earnings in the nursing profession. I will estimate a wage equation by ordinary least squares (OLS) that controls for possible differences in earnings, such as education, experience, race, employment status (part-time or full-time), the number of children one has, marital status, region, urban residence and industry.

Since its inception in 1965, the Medicaid health insurance program has aimed to provide healthcare access to low income pregnant women and children and provide financial protection from large out-of-pocket payments resulting from unanticipated health setbacks. Improved healthcare and family income outcomes are crucial inputs for education production. This thesis is dedicated to estimating whether Medicaid expansions improve education outcomes of low-income children.

Studies of US intergenerational mobility focus almost exclusively on the transmission of (dis)advantage from parents to children. Until very recently, the influence of earlier generations could not be assessed even in long-running longitudinal studies such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We directly link family lines across data spanning 1910 to 2013 and find a substantial “grandparent effect” for cohorts born since 1920, as well as some evidence of a “great-grandparent effect.” Although these may be due to measurement error, we conclude that estimates from only two generations of data understate persistence by about 20 percent.

New benchmark estimates of Black-White income ratios for 1870, 1900, and 1940 are combined with standard post-World War census data. The resulting time series reveals that the pace of racial income convergence has generally been steady but slow, quickening only during the 1940s and the modern Civil Rights era. I explore the interpretation of the time series with a model of intergenerational transmission of inequality in which racial differences in causal factors that determine income are very large just after the Civil War and which erode slowly across subsequent generations.

Combining administrative data from the US Army, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Social Security Administration, we analyze the effect of the VA's Disability Compensation (DC) program on veterans' labor force participation and earnings. We study the 2001 Agent Orange decision, a unique policy change that expanded DC eligibility for Vietnam veterans who served in theater but did not expand eligibility to other veterans of this era, to assess the causal effects of DC enrollment. We estimate that benefits receipt reduced veterans' labor force participation by 18 percentage points, though measured income net of transfer income rose on average.

Personal identity continuity has been a focus of much philosophical inquiry, yet lay perceptions of identity continuity and their psychological bases are not well understood. We hypothesize that cultural differences in lay beliefs about the fixedness of the world promote different intuitions about identity continuity: People from a society with rigid social systems should perceive more identity discontinuity when a persons social relationships (vs. internal traits) change, whereas those from a society with more flexible social systems should perceive the reverse. We tested this hypothesis by comparing fixed-world beliefs and perceptions of identity discontinuity in India and the United States. Results of two studies (N = 863) showed that Indians perceived more identity discontinuity than Americans when relationships (vs. internal traits) changed, which was explained by Indians stronger fixed-world beliefs. Moreover, in Study 2, cultural differences in perceived identity discontinuity mediated cultural differences in trust when a targets relationships (vs. internal traits) changed.

At the request of the Kansas Board of Regents, the Center for Science, Technology, & Economic Policy at the University of Kansas evaluated the labor market impact of the Accelerating Opportunity program in Kansas (AO-K). The Accelerating Opportunity (AO) program is designed fill some of the gap between the skills employers seek and the skills of the available labor force. A main feature of AO programs is the inclusion of adult basic education instructors in technical education courses. We matched students participating in AO-K with a “control group” student in a program with the same major and award level, but at a school where that track was not designated for AO-K supports. To the extent possible, the control group students were also matched on characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, and college readiness. The matching process is designed to even out the effects of these measurable characteristics so that we can single out the effect of AO-K.

Making inferences about aggregate business cycles from regional variation alone is diffcult because of economic channels and shocks that differ between regional and aggregate economies. However, we argue that regional business cycles contain valuable information that can help discipline models of aggregate fluctuations. We begin by documenting a strong relationship across US states between local employment and wage growth during the Great Recession. This relationship is much weaker in US aggregates. Then, we present a methodology that combines such regional and aggregate data in order to estimate a medium-scale New Keynesian DSGE model. We find that aggregate demand shocks were important drivers of aggregate employment during the Great Recession, but the wage stickiness necessary for them to account for the slow employment recovery and the modest fall in aggregate wages is inconsistent with the flexibility of wages we observe across US states. Finally, we show that our methodology yields different conclusions about the causes of aggregate employment and wage dynamics between 2007 and 2014 than either estimating our model with aggregate data alone or performing back-of-the-envelope calculations that directly extrapolate from well-identified regional elasticities.

ABSTRACTMost quantitative research on segregation and neighborhood change in American cities prior to 1940 has utilized data published by the Census Bureau at the ward level. The transcription of c...

This article examines the extent to which shelter entry and re-entry increased during the Great Recession (December 2007December 2009) in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Among successive cohorts of families entering the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), Black families were 23% more likely to enter shelter if they were in the 20082009 cohort and 28% more likely to enter shelter if they were in the 2010 cohort than if they entered SNAP in 20042005. In addition, families who left shelter in 2009 were 39% more likely and families leaving shelter in 2010 were 63% more likely to re-enter shelter than those leaving shelter in 20042006. Only a small part of the increases in shelter entry and shelter re-entry was explained by reductions in family earnings. This suggests that the increases in shelter entry and re-entry may have been caused by other factors, such as the decline in the availability of affordable housing.

This paper seeks to investigate the eects of Ban-the-Box laws across the United States. Ban-the-Box laws make it illegal to ask whether an applicant has been convicted of a crime on a job application. The eects are consistent with that of statistical discrimination where the policy is having adverse eects on individuals labor market outcomes. I find that without perfect information about an individuals criminal history, firms base their perceived productivity of a potential applicant on an expected relationship between race and criminality. This results in negative eects on labor market outcomes for all individuals, especially for black males, who are particularly vulnerable.

In this paper,we construct an equilibrium search model of the labor market augmented to include lump sum taxes that …nance government expenditures. Using the model, we can decompose the decline in labor force participation (LFP) into the policy e¤ect (state provided income) and that of other factors such as declining economic output. The model is estimated using census data on labor market outcomes and welfare income in Ohio. We learn that if the economy resembled the pre-crisis period, the decrease in welfare income during the Kasich administration would have led to a small increase in LFP.

It is well-known that the labor force participation rate for men and the hours worked by men have declined over the past four decades. More men are reporting that they either are not employed and not actively searching for a job or are working part time; these two trends are contributing to the decline in the average hours worked by men in the past four or five decades. During this same time, women have increased their representation in the labor market: The fraction of women participating in the labor force has increased, as has the number of hours women work outside the home, with the majority of the increases driven by growth in the labor supply of married women.