Free college is unlikely to see the light of day in today’s divided political environment, but is frequently in the news as a point of contention between the two leading contenders for the Democratic nomination for president. Bernie Sanders supports eliminating tuition and fees at public colleges, whereas Hillary Clinton favors increases in student aid targeted at low- and middle-income students. This report provides new evidence on which groups of students are likely to benefit the most from a policy that eliminates tuition and fees at public colleges and universities. Using nationally representative data on in-state students at public institutions, I find that students from higher income families would receive a disproportionate share of the benefits of free college, largely because they tend to attend more expensive institutions. Under the Sanders free college proposal, families from the top half of the income distribution would receive 24 percent more in dollar value from eliminating tuition than students from the lower half of the income distribution. The non-tuition costs of attending college, including living expenses, are larger than the costs of tuition and fees for most students. Free college, which does not address these expenses, leaves families from the bottom half of the income distribution with nearly $18 billion in annual out-of-pocket college costs that would not be covered by existing federal, state, and institutional grant programs. Devoting new spending to eliminating tuition for all students involves a tradeoff with investing the same funds in targeted grant aid that would cover more of the total costs of attendance for students from less well-off families. This analysis is meant as a starting point for considering the potential implications of making college free, and does not consider the likely impacts of free college on the enrollment rates of students from different income groups. It also does not consider the distributional implications of the revenue side of the free college proposals, such as Sanders’s proposed tax increase targeted at affluent families. But it highlights the need to carefully consider the tradeoffs between targeted and universal programs aimed at the goal of increasing educational attainment.

The shift to more time-intensive and child-centered parenting in the United States is widely assumed to be positively linked to healthy child development, but implications for adult well-being are ...

Setting immigration policy is reserved for the federal government in both Mexico and the United States. However, de facto, the states in both countries carry out certain immigration policies. Chiapas and Arizona have both faced challenges in this area. The government of Arizona has followed an anti-immigrant logic, while the government of Chiapas has focused on the defense of migrants’ human rights. The aim of this article is to understand the practically opposite roles played by these two states in managing immigration.

BACKGROUND Time shared with a partner is an indicator of marital well-being and couples wants to spend time together. However, time with a partner depends on work and family arrangements as well as the policies, norms and values that prevail in society. Contrary to time spent with children, couples shared time in cross-national context is relatively unstudied. Previous studies from specific countries show that dual-earner couples spend less time together and that parents spend less time alone together. OBJECTIVE The aim of our study is to investigate partnered parents' shared time across countries to understand how social conditions, cultural norms and policy contexts are related to the amount and nature of couples shared time. Specifically, we compare time with a partner in the US, France and Spain. METHODS We use data from the Multinational Time Use Study, a harmonized collection of time diary data that includes information on individuals daily activities and sociodemographic characteristics. We leverage information about with whom activities are done to examine three types of time shared with a partner: total time with a partner indicates the minutes per day spent in the presence of a partner; exclusive time corresponds to the minutes per day spent alone with a partner when no one else is present; and family time indicates the minutes per day spent with a partner and a child at the same time. RESULTS Our results show that American couples spend the least time together and Spanish couples spend the most time together. Parents in France spend the most time alone together. The most striking difference across countries is in time with a partner and children, which is much higher among Spanish families. CONCLUSION Paid work constraints explain a small part of the differences in couples shared time that we observe between countries. Differences in couples shared time across countries seem to be related to social norms surrounding family and general time use.

This dissertation studies the economic phenomenon of city size at the occupation level, focusing on two topics. The first topic is the relationship between city size and wage. According to agglomeration economy theories, workers engaged in some occupations tend to spatially cluster in big cities whereas some others are more likely to locate in smaller areas. As various occupations show different patterns with respect to city size, it is interesting to discover how the city size influences the wages at the occupation level. Besides a comprehensive descriptive analysis on wage and city size for each individual occupation, two counterfactual experiments are constructed by leveraging probabilistic modeling to quantify the effects of city size on wages for each occupation. In addition, a regression model is introduced to fully understand what characteristics associated with occupation lead to the wage premium. The second topic is to explore the relationship between migration and city size. With a thorough data analysis over migration and metropolitan population for each individual occupation, it is found that workers from different occupations have diverse migration patterns. Thus, a comprehensive study on migration is conducted by dividing occupations into three categories: occupations attracted to large cities, occupations preferred to stay in small areas and the rest. Furthermore, a number of key attributes related to occupation are examined in order to understand why various occupations differ significantly in terms of migration. The model identifies that average education level, industry coverage and average residential population are three statistically significant attributes on the tendency of migrating to large metropolitan areas.

The literature on the welfare state assumes, often implicitly but almost universally, that social insurance can or will be provided through the state. This assumption is based on economic models of insurance that show the propensity for market failure when information is limited and privately held. With the data revolution this is no longer a satisfactory approach, and this paper asks what happens when information rises and can be credibly shared with insures. Our model shows that Big Data alters the politics of social insurance by increasing polarization over the level and cost-sharing of public provision, and sometimes by creating majorities for a shift towards segmented and inegalitarian private markets (a shift that is conditioned by government partisanship). We offer a preliminary test of the model examining the relationship between information and life insurance market penetration and between information and polarization.

Although many theoretical arguments have been made linking racism to high mortality and lower life expectancy among African Americans, studies to date have been unable to measure racism directly to determine the strength of the its effect on health and well-being. Here we take advantage of a new internet-based method to measure interstate variation in anti-black sentiment and connect it to cross-state variation in mortality and life expectancy. Estimates of a structural equations model indicate that racism: increases the rate of black homicide through the intervening variable of racial segregation; raises infant mortality through the intervening variable of low birth weight; and increases mortality from diabetes and heart disease through the intervening variable of obesity. Excess deaths from infant mortality, diabetes, and heart disease in turn act to lower black life expectancy, and racism has a direct effect in reducing black life chances as well. Varying the level of racism from its lowest to highest observed level across states is sufficient to shift black life expectancy by an estimated 3.9 years.

We explore differences between Black and White Non-Hispanic workers in the relationship between childhood exposure to religious workers and a worker's labor market outcomes thirty years later. We identify this relationship by exploiting two sources of variation: we use changes in the number of religious workers within states, and we use states' differences by following workers who moved to a different state. Our results suggest that a one percent increase in the number of clergy increases the earnings of Black workers by a range from 0.027 to 0.082 percent relative to the increase in the earnings of White workers.

Imprinted on license plates, plastered on billboards, stamped on the tail side of the state quarter, and inscribed on the state map, the peach is easily Georgia's most visible symbol. Yet Prunus persica itself is surprisingly rare in Georgia, and it has never played a major part in the southern agricultural economy. Why, then, have southerners - and Georgians in particular - clung to the fruit? 'The Georgia Peach: Culture, Agriculture, and Environment in the American South' shows that the peach emerged as a viable commodity at a moment when the South was desperate for a reputation makeover. This agricultural success made the fruit an enduring cultural icon despite the increasing difficulties of growing it. A delectable contribution to the renaissance in food writing, The Georgia Peach will be of great interest to connoisseurs of food, southern, environmental, rural, and agricultural history. Introduction : an invitation -- A wilderness of peach trees -- A baron of pears -- Elberta, you're a peach -- A Connecticut yankee in king cotton's court -- Rot and glut -- Blossoms and hams -- Under the trees -- Conclusion : a benediction.

Inequality in U.S. housing prices and rents both declined in the mid-20th century, even as home-ownership rates rose. Subsequently, housing-price inequality has risen to pre-War levels, while rent inequality has risen less. Combining both measures, we see inequality in housing consumption equivalents mirroring patterns in income across both space and time, according to an income elasticity of housing demand just below one. These patterns occur mainly within cities, and are not explained by observed changes in dwelling characteristics or locations. Instead, recent increases in housing inequality are driven most by changes in the relative value of locations, seen especially through land.

We document that, over the 20th century, age at first marriage followed a U-shaped pattern, while the gender education gap tracked an inverted-U path in the United States. To explain this, we propose a multi-period frictionless matching model where educational and marriage decisions are endogenous. Two key assumptions are made: marriage requires a fixed cost and married couples cannot study simultaneously. This simple model can replicate the aforementioned stylized facts and is consistent with our empirical result that exogenous delays in marriage age caused by minimum age laws decreased the educational difference within a couple while increasing their educational attainment.

A wealth of research has shown that the commutes of American women are shorter, both in time and distance, than those of American men. This study takes advantage of a large, nationally representative dataset, the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), to examine this relationship. A basic labor supply model is presented, with testable predictions about relationships between commuting time and worker characteristics that could explain the gender gap. Additionally, the detailed commuting characteristics derived from the ATUS make possible an examination of gender differences in the character of commutes, including the number, length, and type of stops along the way. Results show that women tend to make more stops between home and work. Even controlling for marital status and the presence of children, women are more likely to be accompanied by children for their commute. Moreover, the stops made by women along this journey tend to be longer than those for men. These differences in commute character necessitate the use of a methodology that accounts for stop duration in the calculation of commuting time. Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions are performed to decompose the gender commuting gap by estimating a model in which these characteristics are fully interacted with gender. Results support two previously proposed explanations for the gender commuting gap, based on gender differences in wages and types of jobs held. The evidence does not support the explanation that womens greater household responsibility contributes to the gender commuting gap.

Census is a complete and systematic enumeration of members of a given population in a particular region or geographical area. It has variety of advantages but also suffers from a number of difficulties. In this regard an effort has been made to test whether sample survey provides sufficient information as that of complete enumeration or not. The data has been taken from the survey Comparison of Two Survey Methodologies to Estimates Total Vaccination Coverage sponsored by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi. It has been observed that sample estimate gives fairly good estimate of population parameter.

Purpose Mental health issues in perinatal adolescents are well documented and studies have shown high rates of depressive disorders among this population. Treatment is challenging because pregnant adolescents are poorly adherent with mental health services. We describe a novel integrated mental health care program for pregnant and parenting adolescent mothers and their children. Methods The Colorado Adolescent Maternity Program (CAMP) is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary teen pregnancy and parenting medical home program serving an ethnically diverse and low socioeconomic status population in the Denver metro area. We describe the Healthy Expectations Adolescent Response Team (HEART), an embedded mental health care program focused on improving identification of mental health symptoms and increasing rates mental health treatment in adolescent mothers. Results From January 1, 2011January 16 2014, 894 pregnant adolescents were enrolled in CAMP and 885 patients were screened for mental health issues. Prior to HEARTs inception, 20 % of patients were identified as having mood symptoms in the postpartum period. Successful referrals to community mental health facilities occurred in only 5 % of identified patients. Following the creation of HEART, 41 % of patients were identified as needing mental health services. Nearly half of the identified patients (47 %) engaged in mental health treatment with the psychologist. Demographic factors including age, parity, ethnicity, and parent and partner involvement did not have a significant impact on treatment engagement. Trauma history was associated with lower treatment engagement. Conclusion Our findings suggest that an embedded mental health program in an adolescent obstetric and pediatric medical home is successful in improving identification and engagement in mental health treatment. Key components of the program include universal screening, intensive social work and case management involvement, and ready access to onsite mental health care providers. Limitations of the program are discussed as well directions for future research.

We document that, over the 20th century, age at first marriage followed a U-shaped pattern, while the gender education gap tracked an inverted-U path in the United States. To explain this, we propose a multi-period frictionless matching model where educational and marriage decisions are endogenous. Two key assumptions are made: marriage requires a fixed cost and married couples cannot study simultaneously. This simple model can replicate the aforementioned stylized facts and is consistent with our empirical result that exogenous delays in marriage age caused by minimum age laws decreased the educational difference within a couple while increasing their educational attainment.

This dissertation uses applied microeconometrics to examine the economics of time allocation and human capital. To do so, these essays bring together data from a variety of sources, build theoretical economic models, and apply econometric methods to deal with empirical issues. In Chapter II, a new measure of commuting time for U.S. households is constructed by applying a previously developed methodology to a novel data source, the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). To assess the suitability of this new measure for empirical analysis, commuting times and patterns within the ATUS measure are then compared to those for commuting measures that have been constructed from other commonly used data sources. Chapter III takes advantage of this novel measure and associated ATUS data to investigate why women tend have shorter commutes than men. Previous studies have examined this gender commuting gap, but have yet to provide a satisfying explanation. A theoretical economic model is developed here that generates predictions complementary to those in the literature. The empirical analysis that follows establishes that the measured gender gap is reduced when stops are included in the calculation of commuting times, but that the remaining gender difference in commuting time is related to gender differences in wages and the types of jobs held. Chapter IV applies econometric methods to a different empirical issue: the impact of military service in WWII and the Korean War on the educational attainment of children. Using U.S. Census data, this chapter constructs linked family data to find that a father's military service is associated with greater educational progress for his children. Applying multiple methods to account for endogenous effects, the analysis is unable to reject the hypothesis that the observed relationship is due to endogeneity.