Many countries are reviewing immigration policy, focusing on wage and employment effects for workers whose jobs may be threatened by immigration. Less attention is given to effects on prices of goods and services. The effect on childcare prices is particularly relevant to policies for dealing with the gender pay gap and below-replacement fertility rates, both thought to be affected by the difficulty of combining work and family. New research suggests immigration lowers the cost of household services and high-skilled women respond by working more or having more children.

The goal of this dissertation is to both theoretically and empirically examine how various personal problems affect income. The analysis will specifically examine the effects of divorce, alcohol use, misuse of legal drugs, and illegal drug use on income. We look at the factors affecting each of the personal problems individually and how these personal problems also affect income. By using a simultaneous equations approach, we find that, although these personal problems do not have the largest effect on income, they do have a substantial impact and therefore should not be left out of wage and income determination models.

This project examines the link between accumulated transportation capital stocks in Minnesota counties and their annual property tax revenues using longitudinal data in the 1995-2011 period. We separated the effects of two different transportation capital stocks, one associated with load roads and the other with trunk highways. In addition, we considered not only the internal effect of transportation investments within a county, but also the spillover effect due to transportation investments made in neighboring counties. Estimations from panel-data regressions show that local-road capital stocks within a county have a positive effecet on its property tax revenues, with an elasticity of 0.093, but much of the benefits may be the outcome of a zero-sum game due to inter-local competition of property tax bases. Trunk-highway capital stocks within a county also show average level of trunk-highway capital stocks in neighboring counties has a positive elasticity of 0.030 on a county's property tax revenues. Applying the estimations to the county data in FY2010, we calculated the ROI (return of investment) of additional transportation investments on property tax bases. The average ROI on the growth of EMV (Estimated Market Values) within a county is about 1.254 for local roads, and about 0.871 for trunk highways. The regional impact would be reduced for local roads due to the inter-local competition, but significantly amplified for trunk highways due to spillover benefits.

By expanding access to retirement savings plans, a state-sponsored program for workers should increase the overall level of participation, and, ultimately, increase retirement fund income. The over 400,000 new enrollees estimated by this study suggests that these programs can have large impacts.

This article examines the significance of the growing presence of Mexican immigrants in Hawai‘i. Drawing on Census Bureau data, qualitative surveys and in-depth interviews, we discuss Mexican immigrants’ experiences as economic and cultural outsiders in Hawai‘i and their encounters with police and immigration enforcement. We argue that Hawai‘i’s case requires an analysis of the role of US settler colonialism and its intersections with racism and economic inequality currently absent in theoretical models developed to understand the volatility that Latinos introduce to Black–White dynamics.

This report presents options the Legislature may wish to consider in order to help Minnesotans reduce their dependence on propane, which can be an expensive and price-volatile fuel, as the 2013-14 heating season demonstrated. Alternatives including converting from propane to other heating sources, adding supplemental heating sources that would reduce but not entirely replace propane usage, and energy conservation. There is no single solution to delivered fuel challenges; determining the best energy alternative is a site-by-site decision, depending on geography, the type of customer, individual preference, and many other factors. Therefore, this report provides a menu of options. As with any energy question, using less energy, through conservation measures such as building envelope improvements and more efficient appliances, should be the first consideration. In a few areas of the state that are close to interstate natural gas pipelines and that have relatively high densities of demand, it may be possible to build natural gas distribution systems to areas currently dependent on propane and other delivered fuels, especially . . .

My research will use the Minnesota Population Center's Integrated Demographic and Health Series (IDHS) data to examine the characteristics of women who do not know about contraceptives in seven Sub-Saharan African countries. Preliminary research shows great variation in contraceptive knowledge across African countries: 35.34% of married women in Nigeria had heard of no contraceptive method (in 2008), compared to only 0.60% in Zimbabwe (in 2010-11). It also reveals a lack of contraceptive knowledge among married women who wish to limit their fertility, most notably in Nigeria and Mali. In Nigeria in 2008, 20.66% of married women who did not want another child had never heard of any contraceptive method, which suggests an unmet need for family planning. I will explore the characteristics of these women, who may have a "latent demand" for contraceptives rather than a demonstrably active demand (Freedman 1997).

A view that gained momentum in the 1990s, and which is sustained by some policy analysts and labor economists today, is that dependence on public assistance is greater for immigrants than for natives. Accordingly, this study investigates nativity differentials in the use of nine assistance programs, focusing on immigrant arrival cohorts within three distinct mode-of-entry proxy categories. The logistic regression analysis uses data from the 2013 CPS March supplement. To permit more nuanced interpretation, control variables are introduced hierarchically in a three-stage analysis. One new finding is that each of the three major regional-origin groups within the 19801995 refugee cohortwith an average length of residence exceeding two decadessustains greater use of either SSI or Medicaid than natives. The study concludes that nativity differences in the use of public assistance continue to rest on the socio-demographic composition of three distinct populations, determined by mode of entry into the U.S.

This story reflects the broad tendency among immigrant populations to concentrate around specific industries and entrepreneurship. This is not a new phenomenon; historical examples of ethnic specialisation range from the Jews in Medieval Europe to the Japanese in South America. Fairlie (2008) shows that immigrants are much more likely to be self-employed entrepreneurs than natives. Kuznets (1960) observed that all minorities are characterised, at a given time, by an occupational structure distinctly narrower than that of the total population and the majority. This is demonstrably true in the US; for example, our data (further described below) show that Eritrean immigrants are 61 times more likely to be taxicab drivers than the average American. As in Yuns story, this is frequently the result of social interactions within the group.

Veterans health care and future demands for VA services have received much attention in recent months. This study uses data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) to examine variables that provide an indication of functional health status. Variables examined include independent living difficulty, cognitive difficulty, ambulatory difficulty, self-care difficulty, and vision or hearing difficulty. Vietnam veterans, veterans who served between 1991 and 2001, and Post 9/11 veterans are each compared to non-veterans in the same age groups at two points in time. Younger Vietnam veterans (i.e., ages 45 to 54 in 2003 and 55 to 64 in 2013) have greater proportions of difficulty for each of the measures as compared to non-veterans in both 2003 and 2013. For veterans who served between 1991 and 2001, younger veterans (i.e., ages 25 to 39 in 2003 and 35 to 49 in 2013) have lower proportions of cognitive difficulty in 2003 as compared to non-veterans in the same age group, but that reversed in 2013. With the exception of the 25 to 29 age group in 2003, veterans have higher proportions of hearing and vision losses than non-veterans in both 2003 and 2013, and the gap between veterans and non-veterans widens over the 10-year period. Results for post-2001 veterans were similar to the 1991-2001 group. These results suggest that demand for health services by veterans might increase at a faster rate compared to non-veterans in the same age group.

We develop new aggregate and sectoral total factor productivity (TFP) estimates for the United States between 1899 and 1941 through better coverage of sectors and better measured labor quality, and show TFP growth was lower than previously thought, broadly based across sectors, strongly variant inter-temporally, and consistent with many diverse sources of innovation. we then test and reject three prominent claims. First, the 1930s did not have the highest TFP growth of the twentieth century. Second, TFP growth was not predominantly caused by four leading sectors. Third, TFP growth was not caused by a 'yeast process' originating in a dominant technology such as electricity.

The misallocation of talent between routine production versus innovation activities has a first-order impact on the welfare and growth prospects of an economy. Surname level empirical analysis employing micro-data on patents and inventors in the U.S. between 1975-2008 combined with census data from 1930 reveals new stylized facts: (i) people with richer surnames have a higher probability of becoming an inventor, however (ii) people with more educated surnames become more prolific inventors. Motivated by this discrepancy, a heterogeneous agents model with production and innovation sectors is developed, where individuals can become inventors even if they are of mediocre talent by excessive spending on credentialing. This is individually rational but socially inefficient. The model is calibrated to match the new stylized facts and data moments from the U.S. economy, and is then used to measure the magnitude of the misallocation of talent in innovation. A thought experiment in which the credentialing spending channel is shut down reveals that the aggregate growth rate of the economy can be increased by 10% of its value through a reduction of the misallocation. Socially optimal progressive bequest taxes that alleviate the misallocation are calculated, which serve to increase the growth rate of the economy to 2.05% while increasing social welfare by 6.20% in consumption equivalent terms.

Immigrants married to the native-born tend to be more socially integrated than immigrants married to other immigrants. In the United States, those married to the native-born typically have better English language skills and know more about U.S. customs and culture both because immigrants with these skills are more likely to marry natives and because sharing a household with a native brings on further social integration. This article examines whether the differential between hourly wages of immigrants married to natives and immigrants married to other immigrants has changed in recent decades. We also explore whether changes in observable characteristics of immigrants who choose to marry natives can explain trends in this differential. We test whether the general patterns are robust across education groups and races. Finally, we explore how much of the increasing wage premium for immigrant/native intermarriage might be explained by the fact that education and English-speaking ability have become more highly rewarded in the U.S. economy.

Out of all family relationships, the sibling relationship remains the least studied. Due to the limited research on sibling relationships, the study aimed to provide a greater understanding of the importance of sibling relationships and the significant role that siblings may play in one anothers lives when coping with the stressful effects of parental divorce. In this qualitative exploratory study, 14 adult sibling dyads were interviewed to explore the ways in which they helped one another deal with the effects of parental divorce. The three main themes that emerged from this study are (a) positive impact of sibling relationships on ability to deal with parental divorce; (b) sibling relationship dynamics; and (c) negative impact of sibling relationships on ability to deal with parental divorce. These themes and supporting evidence by way of direct quotes from the participants suggest that positive sibling relationships have the potential to help children and adolescents cope with and adjust to parental divorce as sources of comfort, stability, and support in times of familial stress and change. Further, these findings suggest that parental favoritism, separation, and lack of parental communication or support during divorce can negatively affect the sibling relationship, undermining the potential for adjustment by the children.

The labor market institution of occupational licensing continues to grow in scope in the United States and abroad. In this paper, we estimate the effects of occupational licensing on opticians using data from the US Census and American Community Survey. The results suggest that opticians earn 0.30.5 percent more for each year that a licensing statute is in effect. In addition, tougher licensing provisions (in the form of more exams or longer education requirements) increase optician earnings by 23 percent. In an examination of vision insurance and malpractice insurance premiums, we find little evidence that optician licensing has enhanced the quality of services delivered to consumers. By and large, optician licensing appears to be reducing consumer welfare by raising the earnings of opticians without enhancing the quality of services delivered to consumers.

This paper uses 2012 American Community Survey (ACS) data to examine the relative earnings performance of full-time employed college-educated Chinese immigrants compared to full-time employed college-educated natives. The college-educated Chinese immigrant population has nearly a $7,000 unadjusted earnings advantage over natives. We show that this advantage is primarily due to differences in human capital endowments between the two groups. For example, college-educated Chinese immigrants are more likely to have PhD degrees and to choose majors that lead to higher paying occupations than college-educated natives. When we control for human capital and demographic differences, the Chinese immigrant earnings advantage becomes a small disadvantage. We also find that Chinese that came as youth, and have been in the U.S. for many years, have a significant earnings advantage over other Chinese immigrants.

The National Academy of Sciences’ (2007) report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, called for more scientific and technical innovation to maintain America’s economic growth and vitality. Countless other reports have called for more science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, culminating in Obama’s 2009 Educate to Innovate initiative. The thinking goes, the more STEM knowledge students gain, the more prepared they will be for the twenty-first-century knowledgebased economy. The problem is that STEM jobs account for merely 5 percent of all U.S. jobs, which suggests that prudent allocation of resources is a principal consideration: Do all students need STEM education, or should it be focused primarily on the mathematically and scientifically inclined? And if so, what are the implications for the majority who are not? In this connection, demographics may hold the key to developing a more pragmatic twenty-first-century solution to educational . . .

In the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century, large cities had extremely high death rates from infectious disease. Within major cities such as New York City and Philadelphia, there was significant variation at any point in time in the mortality rate across neighborhoods. Between 1900 and 1930 neighborhood mortality convergence took place in New York City and Philadelphia. We document these trends and discuss their consequences for neighborhood quality of life dynamics and the economic incidence of who gains from effective public health interventions.

I propose a methodology to conduct counterfactual analysis in a way that is robust to specific assumptions about primitives of linear models of dynamic stochastic economies. First, I show how to identify a set of models that yield the same counterfactual equilibrium after a policy change by imposing restrictions directly on equilibrium equations. Second, I describe how to construct this counterfactual equilibrium using data under a benchmark policy. This allows obtaining quantitative predictions with respect to policy changes with minimal a-priori structural assumptions while being immune to Lucas critique, enhancing credibility of the analysis. 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. My primary finding is that during the Great Recession fiscal integration significantly reduced cross-state employment differences by redistributing resources from states that were doing relatively well to states that were doing relatively poorly. Finally, I discuss how the methodology can further be used to falsify a set of models, provided data before and after a policy change are available