This paper develops a theory that embodies a new microfoundation for the benefits of urban density that offset the costs of land scarcity. Market production of services is efficient because customers effectively share land and other factors of production, leaving them idle for less time. Proximity between consumers and service establishments reduces the time cost of purchasing services. Both of these benefits cause residents of dense areas to purchase services on the market that their suburban counterparts produce at home. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the theory can account for variation in expenditure, home production, labor supply, and land prices.

This project was originally conceived in the mid-1990’s as an outgrowth of research on the anthracite mining industry of Pennsylvania, where both mining and transportation interests were prominently represented. Initial work was focused on the industrial states of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, at a time when GIS software tools were rudimentary by present day standards, scanned historical maps were a rarity and on-line bibliographical sources were virtually unknown. Of PRUH UHFHQW \HDUV? LQ WKH FRQWH[W 3⁄4UVWO\? RI IXQGHG UHVHDUFK RQ WKH PLJUDWLRQ RI heavy industrial workers in the 19th century and secondly, of visualization of railroad development, as part of the JISC/NEH ‘Digging into Data’ Challenge (in collaboration with the University of Nebraska, Lincoln), the project has moved forward substantially, taking advantage of all the developments in both software technology and on-line resources that have taken place over the last decade. The geographical ? ??? ??? ? coverage of the project has also expanded to cover Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia, with a planned extension into New England. This paper begins with a brief examination of the wide range of on-line and off-line bibliographic and cartographic sources that are utilized in the project. Aspects of the design and implementation of the data capture, management and analysis system are then addressed, outlining both the GIS and database components. The GIS is obviously concerned with the location of the railroad lines, while the database holds the organizational chronology of railroad companies, including takeover, mergers and leasing activity. Linkages between the GIS and database components are crucial for tracing the highly complex relationships between the evolving organizational structure of the railroad industry and the changing pattern of RZQHUVKLS RI VSHFL3⁄4F WUDFN VHJPHQWV RQ WKH JURXQG? 7KH 3⁄4QDO VHFWLRQ RI WKH SDSHU H[SORUHV FXUUHQW UHVHDUFK XVHV RI WKH UDLOURDG *,6? with particular reference to several of the major ‘Eastern Trunk Lines’, such as the Baltimore and Ohio RR, the Erie Railway and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Future potential applications in relation to broader work on regional industrial development will also be considered, as time permits.

The aim of this article is twofold: (1) to descriptively explore the evolution of occupational segregation of women and men of different racial/ethnic groups in the United States during 19402010, and (2) to assess the consequences of segregation for each group. For that purpose, in this article, we propose a simple index that measures the monetary loss or gain of a group derived from its overrepresentation in some occupations and underrepresentation in others. This index has a clear economic interpretation. It represents the per capita advantage (if the index is positive) or disadvantage (if the index is negative) of the group, derived from its segregation, as a proportion of the average wage of the economy. Our index is a helpful tool not only for academics but also for institutions concerned with inequalities among demographic groups because it makes it possible to rank them according to their segregational nature.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) commissioned the Urban Institute to update its model to consider the alternative health insurance options that would be available to children enrolled in separate CHIP programs were separate CHIP coverage to be discontinued. The analysis prepared for MACPAC was based on the Urban Institute's Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model (HIPSM) that relies on the American Community Survey (ACS). the HISPM-ACS was updated for this analysis using new estimates from the Medical Expenditure Survey-Insurance Component (MEPS-IC).

Germantown. Schnitzelburg. Irish Hill. The names of neighborhoods within Louisvilles urban core evoke the integral role immigrant populations played in the citys development. As these names suggest, historical immigration to Louisville was largely European in nature. The 1900 Census found that 10 percent of Louisville was foreign-born and that more than three-quarters of the foreign-born population was from Germany or Ireland.

A rising share of employees now regularly engage in working from home (WFH), but there are concerns this can lead to ''shirking from home.'' We report the results of a WFH experiment at Ctrip, a 16,000-employee, NASDAQ-listed Chinese travel agency. Call center employees who volunteered to WFH were randomly assigned either to work from home or in the office for nine months. Home working led to a 13% performance increase, of which 9% was from working more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick days) and 4% from more calls per minute (attributed to a quieter and more convenient working environment). Home workers also reported improved work satisfaction, and their attrition rate halved, but their promotion rate conditional on performance fell. Due to the success of the experiment, Ctrip rolled out the option to WFH to the whole firm and allowed the experimental employees to reselect between the home and office. Interestingly, over half of them switched, which led to the gains from WFH almost doubling to 22%. This highlights the benefits of learning and selection effects when adopting modern management practices like WFH. JEL Codes: D24, L23, L84, M11, M54, O31.

Abstract This article contributes to the literature on the stratification of Asian American homeowners by systematically measuring the foreclosure rates of multiple Asian American ethnic groups, Na...

Comparability among population data enumerated within different time periods may be complicated by changing enumeration boundaries over time. Areal interpolation methods are commonly used to solve such zoning incompatibilities, but are frequently based on the questionable assumption of homogeneous population density within the different zones. To achieve more accurate estimates, land cover or other ancillary data may be used to better characterize the underlying source zone population density surface prior to areal interpolation. Although dasymetric techniques such as these are well documented, their effectiveness across different areal interpolation methods are not well established. This research compares the accuracy of a number of areal interpolation methods used to support temporal analysis of population data, and evaluates the effect of dasymetric mapping on interpolation accuracy. Our findings demonstrate that dasymetric refinement noticeably improves interpolation accuracy for the areal weighting, pycnophylactic, and target density weighting (TDW) methods of areal interpolation. A fourth method in which land cover densities are inherently incorporated, the expectationmaximization algorithm (EM), performs equally well. Our results show that the dasymetrically refined TDW method outperforms other areal interpolation methods in most instances, but suggest that the EM algorithm may be preferred as the interval between enumeration periods grows large.

This report examines the scope of homelessness in New England and the potential role of subsidized housing in alleviating homelessness in the region. The report finds that the number of sheltered homeless families in Massachusetts and Vermont is on the rise, driving an increase in measured homelessness in New England. The authors consider three theories for the cause of the increase: the interaction of national market forces and area-specific shelter policies, area-specific market forces, and challenges in accurately measuring the homeless population. The research also explores the extent to which increased affordable housing can decrease neighborhood homelessness in moderately poor areas, focusing on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) as a source of subsidized housing. The authors find that local increases in subsidized housing are likely to reduce neighborhood homelessness, especially in New England.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a growing problem, disproportionately affecting those born between 1945 and 1965. Here, we demonstrate the wide geographic reach and surveillance potential of emergency department–based screening and identify areas of elevated HCV infection in central Alabama that were socioeconomically disadvantaged compared with surrounding communities.

On October 4th 1957, the Soviet Union launched the worlds first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, into an elliptical low Earth orbit. This surprise triggered an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as science-oriented educational reform in the U.S. Sputnik sparked changes for the U.S. in military, politics, policies, and education. The launch of Sputnik woke Americans up from complacency came from technology, science, and educational superiority. Educational reform started with emphasizing science and defense education and it was expanded to all levels of education. Early reforms, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 were focused on science and defense education during Eisenhowers administration. Domestic programs such as Civil Rights and Great Society diffused educational policy to produce more general human capitals for improve poverty and economic growth during the administrations of Kennedy and Johnson. The Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 was enacted to support postsecondary education. I assert that these policy outputs have contributed to the dramatic increase in the supply of college graduates since 1960. This study begins with emphasizing the Soviet launching of Sputnik and educational reform in early 1960s in U.S. as a cause and effect relationship. Analysis focuses on the policy process of educational reform by applying Kingdons multiple streams model, and on the economic effects of increase in the supply of college graduates by applying Acemoglus theory, the pooling and separating equilibria (1999). According to Acemoglu, economy transitions from initial pooling equilibrium to separating equilibrium as supply of high skilled labor increases and thus labor markets show different patterns in unemployment rates and wage structures for skilled and unskilled, as well as job mismatch. I find that occupational segregation at the state labor markets increases corresponding to supply of college graduates, and overeducation decreases as occupational segregation increases. Moreover, occupational segregation has positive wage effects and wage penalty from overeducation becomes smaller in states where occupations are more separated between the skilled and the unskilled. College graduates earn more wage premiums in states where occupations are more separated between the skilled and the unskilled.

Using the American Community Surveys, I examine the wages of immigrant computer and engineering workers. Immigrants higher education gives them a wage advantage over natives, an advantage larger for computer than for engineering workers, and larger in occupation-based samples than in education-based samples. Among holders of engineering degrees, immigrants earn less than natives, penalized by a high return to English proficiency. The results suggest that imperfect English may reduce their occupational advancement, or an unobserved factor may reduce both occupational advancement and the incentive to perfect English. In all samples, top immigrants from the highest-income countries far outearn top natives.

This dissertation examines the price sensitivity of demand for higher education among non-traditional students in the United States. Chapter 1 discusses the issues related to the demand for higher education. It presents the recent trends and reviews the literature addressing these issues. A major conclusion that emerges from this chapter is that the price sensitivity of demand for higher education appears to depend on the source of the variation in price and the characteristics of the students who face the price change. The baseline estimate for the price sensitivity of demand is that a $1,000 (in year 2000 dollars) decrease in tuition costs should result in a 4 percentage-point increase in enrollment for the traditional 18- to 24-year-old student. Chapter 2 examines the price sensitivity of demand for higher education for military spouses resulting from variation in tuition due to military-mandated moves across states. The data suggest that a $1,000 (in year 2000 dollars) decrease in the cost of 2-year schools is associated with a 1--1.5 percentage-point increase in the probability of attending college. This estimate is less than half the previous estimates due to in-state tuition price differences faced by the civilian 18- to 24-year-old population on a percentage-point basis. However, this represents a 7--10 percent increase for this population, and the magnitude of this metric is in line with previous estimates. This suggests tuition assistance can be an effective means of increasing enrollment for military spouses, but other barriers to education for this population may also need to be addressed. Chapter 3 examines the impact of a change in the tax treatment of savings set aside for higher education by those who decide to suspend their education and enter the workforce. The taxation of these funds appears to have increased the rate at which these funds are included in an employee's initial contract and the quantity of funds allocated. These results are counterintuitive if the tax preference was the primary reason for the savings plan. However, these results suggest the rationale for the savings plan was to offer targeted additional compensation to recruits with greater negotiating power. Taxation of funds previously set aside . . .

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was established as the last of the baby boomers were being born and the first were transitioning to adulthood. This generation has greatly influenced patterns of housing growth and development in the United States and will continue to do so. Baby boomers are parents to the millennial generation, a group with the potential to reshape the urban formthough to what extent remains to be seen.

This paper aims at quantifying the welfare loss that a society can experience due to the segregation of the demographic groups that comprise it. In aggregating the well-being losses (gains) of the groups derived for being concentrated in low-status (high-status) organizational units, this paper embraces the distributive approach adopted in the literature on economic deprivation and poverty. In addition to developing several measures, this paper explores the welfare losses that the United States has experienced over the last decades due to occupational segregation by both gender and race/ethnicity. The analysis is undertaken at both a national and a regional level since occupational segregation along these lines is far from been a homogenous phenomenon across the country.

Content providers, such as enterprises and organizations who publish their content on the Internet, aim at making their content visible and easily accessible to the users. The vast amount of data contained in databases impedes their efforts, as users often find it challenging to navigate through the available data and find the items that best suit their needs. It is therefore necessary for content providers to motivate users to explore the available data and assist them in finding items that are interesting to them. State-of-the-art approaches such as top-k queries are not appropriate for data exploration as they require the users to be aware of the database structure and the content they are exploring. In this thesis, we study the problem of enhancing the visibility of database content through exploratory search and analysis. We propose exploratory algorithms that return to the user a small number of results, which at the same time provide a wide overview of the available content. In addition, we present algorithms that identify items that are appealing to users and can be exploited for offering users an insight of the available items and motivating them to explore the database. In particular, the main contributions of the thesis are: We develop a framework for organizing and summarizing keyword search results based on their textual content and temporal data. We introduce a new type of query, the eXploratory Top-k Join (XTJk) query, which creates object combinations that are better suited to user preferences than single objects, and we present algorithms for the efficient processing of XTJk queries. We introduce the continuous influential query, which returns objects that are continuously attractive to a large number of users for long periods, and we present algorithms for the efficient retrieval of continuous influential objects. We model the diversity of database objects based on user preferences, and we propose efficient algorithms for selecting products that are attractive to a wide range of users with diverse preferences. We describe the Best-terms problem which is the problem of increasing the rank of a spatio-textual object through the enhancement of its textual description. We show that the problem is NP-hard and we present approximate algorithms that retrieve high quality results. The proposed approaches have been evaluated through extensive experimental evaluation. The experiments were conducted using both synthetic and real datasets and demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods.

We use the NLS-72 and ELS:2002 data sets to evaluate changes in the college matching process. Rising attendance rates at four-year institutions have not decreased average preparedness of college goers or of college graduates, and further attendance gains are possible before diminishing returns sets in. We use multinomial logit models to demonstrate that measures of likely success (GPA) became more predictive of college attendance over time, while other student characteristics such as race and parents’ education became less predictive. Our evidence suggests that schools have become better at sorting while students have efficiently responded to changes in the return to higher education.

Over the past few decades, there have been rapid changes in marriage patterns in the U.S. The shift in marriage is marked by a declining marriage rate, a historically high median age at first marriage (29.2 among men, 27.5 among women), and growing premarital and postmarital cohabitation that less often eventuate in marriage (Cherlin 2004; FP-14-18; Manning et al. 2014). Using data from the 1989 and 2014 Current Population Survey, this profile examines women’s experiences of marriage over the past 25 years. We present the share of American women aged 18-49 who had ever been married by race/ethnicity and by educational attainment. In a related profile (FP-15-01), we reported 25 years of change in cohabitation.

In cities with ample space to expand, municipal annexation is a versatile urban growth management tool because it can direct the location of future land development and population growth. However, limited research has addressed the cost of providing public services, specifically police services, in cities which have undergone varyingspatialformsofmunicipalannexation. Inthisthesis,Itestthehypothesisthat there are costs associated with increasingly spatially fragmented forms of annexation. I perform regression analysis on two spatial descriptors of non-compact boundaries using anationalsampleof119UnitedStatescitiesfortheperiod1990to2010. Thesample includes cities which exhibited a high areal growth rate exceeding 5% and a population thresholdofatleast75,000inhabitantsacrossthestudyperiod. Whencontrollingfor both city-specific factors and national trends in police expenditure, I found no association at the 10% significance level to support a relationship between fragmented annexation and the costs of police services. This research shows that criticisms of fragmented patterns of annexation cannot be justified solely on the basis of increased police service costs.