Background—Hookah use may be increasing among adults in the United States. Information on the prevalence and correlates of hookah use in the adult population is relatively limited. Objectives—To determine the prevalence of current (past 30-day) and lifetime use of hookah among adults ages 18–40 in the United States, and to investigate the socio-demographic characteristics associated with lifetime use. Methods—Data were drawn from the Tobacco Use Supplement of the Current Population Survey data from May 2010, August 2010, and January 2011 (n=85,545). Logistic regression was used to examine various demographic correlates of lifetime hookah use. Results—Among 18–40 year olds, the past-month prevalence rate of hookah use was 0.6% and the lifetime prevalence rate of hookah use was 3.9%. Being male, non-Hispanic White, having higher levels of educational attainment, having never been married, not having any children, earning less than $20,000 annually, residing in the Midwest or Western United States, being a student, and being a cigarette smoker were associated with increased likelihood of lifetime hookah use. The prevalence of hookah use among current, non-daily cigarette smokers was 10.7%, more than double that of the general adult population. Conclusions—Hookah use is significantly more common among cigarette smokers and among various demographic sub-groups of the general adult population. Given the risks associated with hookah and poly-tobacco use, targeted public health efforts are recommended. Additionally, healthcare providers may consider expanding screening tests to include hookah use.

OBJECTIVES We sought to determine whether contextual factors shape injection drug use among Black adolescents and adults. METHODS For this longitudinal study of 95 US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), we drew annual MSA-specific estimates of the prevalence of injection drug use (IDU) among Black adolescents and adults in 1993 through 2007 from 3 surveillance databases. We used existing administrative data to measure MSA-level socioeconomic status; criminal justice activities; expenditures on social welfare, health, and policing; and histories of Black uprisings (1960-1969) and urban renewal funding (1949-1974). We regressed Black IDU prevalence on these predictors by using hierarchical linear models. RESULTS Black IDU prevalence was lower in MSAs with declining Black high-school dropout rates, a history of Black uprisings, higher percentages of Black residents, and, in MSAs where 1992 White income was high, higher 1992 Black income. Incarceration rates were unrelated. CONCLUSIONS Contextual factors shape patterns of drug use among Black individuals. Structural interventions, especially those that improve Black socioeconomic security and political strength, may help reduce IDU among Black adolescents and adults.

Over the 1990s, the share of foreigners entering the US high-skill workforce grew rapidly. This migration potentially had a significant effect on US workers, consumers and firms. To study these effects, we construct a general equilibrium model of the US economy and calibrate it using data from 1994 to 2001. Built into the model are positive effects high skilled immigrants have on innovation. Counterfactual simulations based on our model suggest that immigration increased the overall welfare of US natives, and had significant distributional consequences. In the absence of immigration, wages for US computer scientists would have been 2.6% to 5.1% higher and employment in computer science for US workers would have been 6.1% to 10.8% higher in 2001. On the other hand, complements in production benefited substantially from immigration, and immigration also lowered prices and raised the output of IT goods by between 1.9% and 2.5%, thus benefiting consumers. Finally, firms in the IT sector also earned substantially higher profits due to immigration.

Many aggregate-level studies suggest a relationship between economic inequality and sociodemographic outcomes such as family formation, health, and mortality; individual-level evidence, however, is lacking. Nor is there satisfactory evidence on the mechanisms by which inequality may have an effect. We study the determinants of transitions to a nonmarital first birth as a single parent or as a cohabiting parent compared to transitions to marriage prior to a first birth among unmarried, childless young adults in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort, from 1997 to 2011. We include measures of county-group-level household income inequality and the availability of jobs typically held by high school graduates that pay above-poverty wages (i.e., middle-skilled jobs). We find that greater income inequality is associated with a reduced likelihood of transitioning to marriage prior to a first birth for both women and men. The association between levels of inequality and transitions to marriage can be partially accounted for by the availability of middle-skilled jobs. Some models also suggest that greater income inequality is associated with a reduced likelihood of transitioning to a first birth while cohabiting.

This article provides theoretical grounds and empirical evidence that different types of lynching in the post-Reconstruction South were driven by social processes at different levels of analysis. County-level analyses based upon new detailed data on lynchings in Georgia and Louisiana from 1882 to 1930 reveal that private' lynchings, perpetrated by small groups outside the public purview without manifest ritual, were related to whites interracial status and social identity concerns on the interpersonal level, whereas public' lynchings, involving larger mobs and ritualized violence, appear unaffected by such dynamics. These results validate relational and interactionist perspectives on violence, lend support to calls for disaggregation in the study of racial, ethnic, and nationalist violence, and shed light on the intertwining of racial identity formation with the generation of racial inequalities. They also carry implications for the study of contemporary ethno-racial hate crime.

Study design—Analysis of the State Inpatient Database of North Carolina, 2005–2012, and the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, including all inpatient lumbar fusion admissions from non-federal hospitals. Objective—To examine the influence of a major commercial policy change that restricted lumbar fusion for certain indications, and to forecast the potential impact if the policy were adopted nationally. Summary of Background Data—Few studies have examined the effects of recent changes in commercial coverage policies that restrict the use of lumbar fusion. Methods—We included adults undergoing elective lumbar fusion or re-fusion operations in North Carolina. We aggregated data into a monthly time series to report changes in the rates and volume of lumbar fusion operations for disc herniation or degeneration, spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis, or revision fusions. Time series regression models were used to test for significant changes in the use of fusion operation following a major commercial coverage policy change initiated on January 1st, 2011. Results—There was a substantial decline in the use of lumbar fusion for disc herniation or degeneration following the policy change on January 1st, 2011. Overall rates of elective lumbar fusion operations in North Carolina (per 100,000 residents) increased from 103.2 in 2005 to 120.4 in 2009, before declining to 101.9 by 2012. The population rate (per 100,000 residents) of fusion among those under age 65 increased from 89.5 in 2005 to 101.2 in 2009, followed by a sharp decline to 76.8 by 2012. There was no acceleration in the already increasing rate of fusion for spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis or revision procedures, but there was a coincident increase in decompression without fusion. Conclusions—This commercial insurance policy change had its intended effect of reducing fusion operations for indications with less evidence of effectiveness without changing rates for other indications or resulting in an overall reduction in spine surgery. Nevertheless, broader adoption of the policy could significantly reduce the national rates of fusion operations and associated costs.

The 2016 US presidential nominee Donald Trump has broken with the policies of previous Republican Party presidents on trade, immigration, and war, in favor of a more nationalist and populist platform. Using detailed Gallup survey data for 125,000 American adults, we analyze the individual and geographic factors that predict a higher probability of viewing Trump favorably. The results show mixed evidence that economic distress has motivated Trump support. His supporters are less educated and more likely to work in blue collar occupations, but they earn relatively high household incomes and are no less likely to be unemployed or exposed to competition through trade or immigration. On the other hand, living in racially isolated communities with worse health outcomes, lower social mobility, less social capital, greater reliance on social security income and less reliance on capital income, predicts higher levels of Trump support. We confirm the theoretical results of our regression analysis using machine learning algorithms and an extensive set of additional variables.

This thesis explores the determinants of tax evasion and their implications for tax policy, with a special focus on taxation in developing countries. Chapter 1 studies how the transition from self-employment to employee-jobs over the long run of development explains the rise of the modern tax system. I construct a new microdataset, covering 90 countries at all levels of development today and 140 years within the US between 1870 and 2010. Using these data, I provide new stylized facts: within country, the share of employees increases over the income distribution, and increases at all levels of income as a country develops; 2) the income tax exemption threshold moves down the income dis- tribution as a country develops tracking employee growth. I provide a causal estimate of the impact of employee-share on the exemption threshold and on tax revenue, by studying a state-led development program which was implemented across US states in the 1950s-60s. I find that the exogenous increase in employee share is associated with a lower state income tax threshold and higher revenue. Chapter 2 studies individual and social motives in tax evasion. We build a dynamic model that incorporates these motives, their interactions, and where social motives underpin the role of norms. Our empirical analysis exploits the adoption in 1990 of a poll tax to fund local government in the UK, which led to widespread evasion, and a series of natural experiments due to narrow election outcomes, which induce shifts into single-majority local governments and lead to more vigorous enforcement of local taxes. The econometric results are consistent with the model’s main predictions on the dynamics of evasion. Chapter 3 studies the impact of access to formal finance and firm size on tax inspection and tax compliance. We use firm-level data on 108,000 firms across 79 countries in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. We instrument for finance and firm size at the industry-level using an out of sample extrapolation strategy related. We find a large and positive effect of firm size on both tax inspection and sales tax compliance, but no overall significant impact of reliance on external finance.

Hurricane Sandy, like most costly U.S. hurricane disasters, was fundamentally urban in character. Staten Island, New York, one of the five boroughs of New York City, received disproportionate damages in the storm, and recovery has been slow. The borough receives limited attention in academic and popular literature relative to the other four boroughs, despite a large population and a rich history dating to the colonial era. This study extends the idea that places are historically contingent and constantly evolving to place-based hazards research. It focuses on the historical development of places across Staten Island landscapes, on the ways in which those developments created and failed to mitigate coastal flood risk, and on the role of residents’ attachment to places in influencing their recovery from Sandy. It employs a mixed methods approach, relying on tools and concepts from the urban geography, urban sociology, historical geography, demography, and natural hazards literatures. The dissertation first explores the historical development of landscapes across Staten Island from the colonial era to the present day, noting the ways in which modern landscapes bear the traces of their historical antecedents. It next investigates the growth of flood risk over the course of the twentieth century in the island’s East Shore neighborhoods, pointing to prior storm events that foreshadowed Sandy. Post-Sandy policy initiatives are then examined in the light of these prior events. This study finds that many lessons have been learned from the failures of prior proposals, and that these lessons are reflected in the present-day proposals. The evolution of the study area’s demographic composition over the past 50 years is then examined within the broader context of other Sandy-affected areas to determine similarities and differences. Finally, the study examines the relationship between place attachment and recovery from Sandy, finding that one measure of place attachment. . .

Progressive income taxes provide a disincentive for workers to live in high productivity local labor markets, potentially leading to a spatial misallocation of labor. Relative to previous work, Chapter 1 relaxes two key assumptions; 1) that workers are perfectly mobile and 2) that workers are homogeneous. These generalizations allow us to better quantify the impact of federal income taxes, as well as analyze the associated equity-efficiency trade-off, which has not previously been studied in a spatial context. To quantify these effects, we augment an empirical spatial equilibrium model (Diamond, 2015) to incorporate taxes and estimate it using Census data. We find that the optimal federal income tax code is substantially more progressive than the current tax code, i.e. that redistribution concerns outweigh the efficiency costs of income taxes in a spatial equilibrium. High school graduates are substantially less likely to move between states than college graduates. If moving costs increase with distance, then a stronger spatial correlation in the value of nearby locations will decrease migration rates. In Chapter 2, I document that the spatial correlation in average (log) wages, by MSA, is stronger for high school graduates. I estimate a location choice model in the spirit of McFadden(1978) and Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes(2004) to assess the quantitative importance of this empirical relationship. Counterfactual experiments examine migration rates for high school graduates as if they faced the same spatial correlation in wages as college graduates.

The economic status of women in Georgia is a key factor in the overall health and future of the state’s economy. Women represent a majority of Georgia’s adult population[1] and nearly half of the workforce.[2] In more than half of all Georgia households with children, women are primary or co-breadwinners.[3] Despite their importance, women face a host of barriers keeping them and Georgia’s economy, from reaching their full potential. Women working full-time in Georgia earn, on average, 70 cents for every dollar white men earn.[4] The gender wage gap is even wider once part-time workers are taken into account. Georgia stands to gain a lot by removing these barriers to equal earnings for working women and their families. The state’s economy could add a staggering $14.4 billion if all working women in Georgia earned the same amount of money as men living in similar population areas, of the same age, education level and working the same number of hours.[5] Even more money could be added to Georgia’s economy if women who are now not working got more support, including child care and health care, which can allow them to rejoin the workforce or work more hours. Increasing earnings for Georgia women can also provide a powerful boost to working families themselves. Lower earnings for Georgia women make it more likely they and their families will live in poverty, which carries a host of negative implications for the future of the state’s workforce and overall well-being. Poverty for Georgia’s working women could fall by nearly half if women earned the same amount of money as men in comparable circumstances.[6] Lower pay also makes it harder for women to afford health care which is essential to their heath and overall well-being.

We study life-cycle decisions of five cohorts of American men and women born from the 1930s to the 1970s in a unified econometric framework applied to CPS data. The men and women in our model make individual decisions when single, joint decisions when married, and interact in a marriage market. Our model succeeds in explaining differences in education, work, marriage/divorce and fertility across the five cohorts using shifts in five exogenous factors: parental education, the distribution of potential partners, divorce laws, the wage/job offer distribution, and birth control technology. For example, one major change between the 1935 and 1975 cohorts was an increase in the employment rate of married women aged 25 to 34 from 29% to 60%. Our model attributes almost 2/3 of this increase to improved wage/job offer distributions for women, while 1/3 is accounted for by improved birth control technology. Another major change was the increase in womens college graduation rate from 6% to 37%. Our model attributes roughly 40% of this change to higher mothers education, 33% to lower divorce costs, 20% to improved wage/job offers and 7% to changes in the marriage offer distribution. Availability of oral contraception explains the entire drop in children of single mothers. It explains most of the drop in completed fertility for married women, but economic factors explain most of the delay in fertility.

Race and ancestry are both popularly viewed in the United States as different but intertwined reflections on a persons essentialized identity that answer the question of who is what? Despite this loose but well-understood connection between the two concepts and the availability of ancestry data on the U.S. census, researchers have rarely used the two sources of data in combination. In this article, drawing on theories of boundary formation, I compare these two forms of identification to explore the salience and social closure of racial boundaries. Specifically, I analyze race-reporting inconsistency and predict college completion at multiple levels of racial ancestry aggregation using Census data. The results suggest that, while much of the variation in these measures corresponds to popular big race conceptions of difference, considerable variation remains among individual ancestries.

The residential segregation can be defined as the degree to which two or more population groups reside in separate neighborhoods within the urban setting. The residential segregation studied in this dissertation considers the locational split of population based on racial characteristics. In the United States, a special role is given to the segregation pattern of blacks as a consequence of the historic treatment of African-Americans. The abolition of slavery was legally transferred to segregation laws that posed unequal access of blacks to public goods and services (Frazier and Margai, 2003). After segregation laws and any kind of racial and ethnic discrimination were finally prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the phenomenon of segregation persisted in the American society for decades to come.

There are persistent differences in self-reported subjective well-being across US metropolitan areas, and residents of declining cities appear less happy than others. Yet some people continue to move to these areas, and newer residents appear to be as unhappy as longer-term residents. While historical data on happiness are limited, the available facts suggest that cities that are now declining were also unhappy in their more prosperous past. These facts support the view that individuals do not maximize happiness alone but include it in the utility function along with other arguments. People may trade off happiness against other competing objectives.

There is a well-documented wage penalty for gay men in the United States. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that gay men earn between 11% and 15% less than straight men. In this paper, I test whether models of taste-based discrimination can explain the gay wage penalty in the United States. I combine restricted access data from the General Social Survey with estimated wage penalties from the Census data to estimate the empirical relationship between prejudice and wage penalties. I find no evidence the Becker model of discrimination explains the presence of a gay wage penalty. I show there is strong evidence that search models of discrimination are able to explain the gay wage penalty. Wage penalties in the United States are positively correlated with the share of the population that is prejudiced against homosexuals. The size of the gay population is negatively correlated with the wage penalty. The results suggest that changes in prejudice between 1990 and 2014 can explain up to 25% of the decline in the gay wage penalty over that period.

Housing affordability is a growing crisis for urban areas with constrained housing markets. In this paper, I examine the effects of income inequality and other demographic characteristics on housing prices in San Francisco. I find that income is not a determinant of housing prices, but that other housing and demographic characteristics do impact housing prices. That these findings differ from the existing literature is likely due to limitations of my study, but the implications of my study are nonetheless useful in the context of housing supply and pricing. As income inequality in San Francisco continues to grow, its impact on rising housing prices is relevant for policymakers seeking to address the city’s housing affordability crisis.

We propose a new source of cross-sectional variation that may identify causal impacts of government spending on the economy. We use the fact that a large number of federal spending programs depend on local population levels. Every ten years, the Census provides a count of local populations. Since a different method is used to estimate non-Census year populations, this change in methodology leads to variation in the allocation of billions of dollars in federal spending. Our baseline results follow a treatment-effects framework where we estimate the effect of a Census Shock on federal spending, income, and employment growth by re-weighting the data based on an estimated propensity score that depends on lagged economic outcomes and observed economic shocks. Our estimates imply a local income multiplier of government spending between 1.7 and 2, and a cost per job of $30,000 per year. A complementary IV estimation strategy yields similar estimates. We also explore the potential for spillover effects across neighboring counties but we do not find evidence of sizable spillovers. Finally, we test for heterogeneous effects of government spending and find that federal spending has larger impacts in low-growth areas.

Counterfactuals in fully specified structural models are the leading paradigm for analyzing systematic policy changes because they are immune to Lucas Critique. However, such coun- terfactuals 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 stochas- tic 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 stabiliza- tion. 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 inte- gration 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.