Purpose: The breast imaging modalities of mammography, ultrasound, and MRI are widely used for screening, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance of breast cancer. Geographic access to breast imaging services in various modalities is not known at a national level overall or for population subgroups. Methods: A retrospective study of 2004-2008 Medicare claims data was conducted to identify ZIP codes in which breast imaging occurred, and data were mapped. Estimated travel times were made for each modality for 215,798 census block groups in the contiguous United States. Using Census 2010 data, travel times were characterized by sociodemographic factors for 92,788,909 women aged 30 years, overall, and by subgroups of age, race/ethnicity, rurality, education, and median income. Results: Overall, 85% of women had travel times of 20 minutes to nearest mammography or ultrasound services, and 70% had travel times of 20 minutes for MRI with little variation by age. Native American women had median travel times 2-3 times longer for all 3 modalities, compared to women of other racial/ethnic groups. For rural women, median travel times to breast imaging services were 4-8-fold longer than they were for urban women. Black and Asian women had the shortest median travel times to services for all 3 modalities. Conclusions: Travel times to mammography and ultrasound breast imaging facilities are short for most women, but for breast MRI, travel times are notably longer. Native American and rural women are disadvantaged in geographic access based on travel times to breast imaging services. This work informs potential interventions to reduce inequities in access and utilization.

This dissertation consists of two essays that study the linkages among agglomeration economies, investment in education, and regional development. In the first essay, I study the impact of a federal educational investment on various aspects of local economies. In the second essay, I examine the spillover effects among workers with different skills, which are identified by their college majors. The first essay presents evidence of direct spillovers from universities and examines the short- and long-run effects of university activities on geographic clustering of economic activity, labor market composition and local productivity. I treat the designation of land-grant universities as a natural experiment after controlling for the confounding factors with a combination of synthetic control methods and event-study analyses. Three key results are obtained. First, the designation substantially increased local population density. Second, the share of manufacturing workers in the population, an indicator of labor market composition, was not affected by the designation. Third, the designation greatly enhanced local manufacturing productivity, as measured by local manufacturing output per worker, especially in the long run. This positive effect on the . . .

The indicators section of the 2014 World Family Map report provides information on 16 indicators of family well-being in four areas—family structure, family socioeconomics, family process, and family culture—across 49 countries, representing a majority of the world’s population. The indicators section is an update to the 2013 World Family Map report. With the exception of two parent-child communication indicators in the family culture section, we used the same indicators as the 2013 report. This report is updated with new data, as available, and includes an additional four countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Background:The few studies that have examined whether metropolitan-level ethnic residential segregation is associated with obesity among Hispanics are mixed.The segmented assimilation theory, which suggests patterns of integration for immigrant groups varies by social factors, may provide an explanation for these mixed findings. In this study we examined whether one social factor, racial identity, modified the association between ethnic residential segregation and body mass index (BMI) among Hispanics.Methods:We used data on 22,901 male and 37,335 non-pregnantfemale Hispanic adult participants of the 2003-2008 U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System living in 227 metropolitan or micropolitan areas (MMSAs). Participantsself-identified as White, Black, andsome other race. BMI was calculated using self-re ported height and weight; theHispanic isolation index was used to measure Hispanic residential segregation. Using multi-level linear regression models, we examined the association of Hispanic residential segregation with BMI, and we investigated whether this relationship varied by race.Results:Among men, Hispanic segregation was unassociated with BMI after adjusting for age, race, MMSA-level poverty, and MMSA-level population size; there was no variation in this relationship by race. Among women, significant associationsbetween Hispanic segregation and BMI in models adjusted for demographics and MMSA-level confounders became attenuated with further adjustment for education and language of exam. However, there was statistically significant variation by race (P interaction= 0.03 and 0.09 for Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics who identified as some other race, respectively,vs. Hispanic Whites). Specifically, higher segregation was associated with higher mean BMI among Hispanic Whites, but it was associated with lower mean BMI among Hispanic Blacks.Segregation was unassociated with BMI among Hispanicwomen identifying as some other race.Conclusions:This heterogeneity highlights the persistent influence of race on structural processes that can have downstream consequences on health. As Hispanics grow as a proportion of the U.S. population, especially across urban centers, understanding the health consequences of residence in segregated areas, and whether or not these impacts vary across different groups, will be important for the design of more comprehensive solutions to prevent adverse health outcomes.

Sleep duration, associated with increased morbidity/mortality, has been shown to vary by race and occupation. Few studies have examined the additional influence of immigrant status. Using a nationally-representative sample of 175,244 US adults from the National Health Interview Survey from 2004 to 2011, we estimated prevalence ratios (PRs) for short sleep duration (<7 h/per day) among US- and non-US born Blacks and Latinos by occupation compared to their White counterparts using adjusted Poisson regression models with robust variance. Non-US born participants' mean age was 46 years, 55% were men, 58% were Latino, and 65% lived in the US 15 years. Short sleep prevalence was highest among US- and non-US born Blacks in all occupations, and the prevalence generally increased with increasing professional/management roles in Blacks and Latinos while it decreased among Whites. Adjusted short sleep was more prevalent in US-born Blacks compared to Whites in professional/management (PR = 1.52 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.421.63]), support services (PR = 1.31 [95% CI: 1.261.37]), and laborers (PR = 1.11 [95% CI: 1.061.16]). The BlackWhite comparison was even higher for non-US born Black laborers (PR = 1.50 [95% CI: 1.241.80]). Similar for non-US born Latinos, Latinos born in the US had a higher short sleep prevalence in professional/management (PR = 1.14 [95% CI: 1.041.24]) and support services (PR = 1.06 [95% CI: 1.011.11]), but a lower prevalence among laborers (PR = 0.77 [95% CI: 0.740.81]) compared to Whites. Short sleep varied within and between immigrant status for some ethnicities in particular occupations, further illuminating the need for tailored interventions to address sleep disparities among US workers.

Researchers have good data on teachers' annual salaries but a hazy understanding of teachers' hours of work. This makes it di$ffcult to calculate an accurate hourly wage and leads policy makers to default to anecdote rather than fact when debating teacher pay. Those who argue that teachers are overpaid point to a short contractual work day and year. Those who argue that teachers are overworked point to unpaid evenings, weekends and summers spent planning, grading and helping with extra curricular activities. Time diary data has the potential to settle this debate. Using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I find that teachers work an average of 34.5 hours per week on an annual basis (approximately 38.0 hours per week during the school year and 21.5 hours per week during the summer months). I find that when hours per week are accurately accounted for high school teachers earn in the range of 7-14% less than demographically similar workers in other occupations, however, elementary, middle and special education teachers earn higher wages than demographically similar workers in other occupations.

This paper estimates intergenerational elasticities across three generations in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We extend the methodology in Olivetti and Paserman (2013) to explore four different channels of intergenerational mobility: fathers-sons-grandsons, fathers-sons-granddaughters, fathers-daughters-grandsons and fathers-daughters-granddaughters. We document three main findings. First, there is evidence of a strong second-order autoregressive coefficient for the process of intergenerational transmission of income. Second, the socio-economic status of grandsons is influenced more strongly by paternal grandfathers than by maternal grandfathers. Third, maternal grandfathers are more important for granddaughters than for grandsons, while the opposite is true for paternal grandfathers. We propose two alternative theoretical frameworks that can rationalize these findings.

We consider a life-cycle model with idiosyncratic risk in earnings, out-of-pocket medical and nursing home expenses, and survival. Partial insurance is available through welfare, Medicaid, and social security. Calibrating the model to the United States we show that savings for old-age, out-of-pocket expenses account for 13.5 per- cent of aggregate wealth, half of which is due to nursing home expenses; cross-sectional out-of-pocket nursing home risk accounts for 3 percent of aggregate wealth and substantially slows down wealth decumulation at older ages; and all newborns would benefit if social insurance for nursing home stays was made more generous.

Background: Although short sleep is associated with an increased risk of morbidity as well as mortality and has been shown to vary by industry of employment and occupation, little is known about the relationship between work and sleep among Asian Americans. Methods: Using a nationally representative sample of US adults (n=125,610) in the National Health Interview Survey from 20042011, we estimated prevalence ratios for self-reported short sleep duration (<7 hours) in Asians compared to Whites by industry of employment and occupation using adjusted Poisson regression models with robust variance. Results: Asians were more likely to report short sleep duration than Whites (33 vs. 28%, p < 0.001), and the Asian-White disparity was widest in finance/information and healthcare industries. Compared to Whites after adjustments, short sleep was also more prevalent among Asians employed in Public administration (PR = 1.35 [95% CI: 1.17,1.56]), Education (PR = 1.29 [95% CI: 1.08,1.53]), and Professional/Management (PR = 1.18 [95% CI: 1.03,1.36]). Short sleep, however, was lower among Asians in Accommodation/Food (PR = 0.81 [95% CI: 0.66, 0.99]) with no difference in Retail. In professional and support-service occupations, short sleep was higher among Asians, but was not different among laborers. Conclusions: U.S. Asian-White disparities in short sleep varied by industries, suggesting a need to consider both race and occupational characteristics to identify high-risk individuals.

Taller workers are paid higher wages. A prominent explanation for this pattern is that physical growth and cognitive development share childhood inputs, inducing a correlation between adult height and two productive skills: strength and intelligence. This paper explores the relative roles of strength and intelligence in explaining the labor market height premium among Mexican men. While cognitive test scores account for a limited share of the height premium, roughly half of the premium can be attributed to the educational and occupational choices of taller workers. Taller workers obtain more education and sort into occupations with greater intelligence requirements and lower strength requirements, suggesting a possible role for cognitive skill. (C) 2013

More than two decades ago, Smith and Welch (1989) used the 1940 through 1980 census files to document important relative black progress. However, recent data indicate that this progress did not continue, at least among men. The growth of incarceration rates among black men in recent decades combined with the sharp drop in black employment rates during the Great Recession have left most black men in a position relative to white men that is really no better than the position they occupied only a few years after the Civil Rights Act of 1965. A move toward more punitive treatment of arrested offenders drove prison growth in recent decades, and this trend is evident among arrested offenders in every major crime category. Changes in the severity of corrections policies have had a much larger impact on black communities than white communities because arrest rates have historically been much greater for blacks than whites.

This study examines the relationship between parenthood, sex, and personal income in the United States between 1990 and 2010.1 The data analyzed in this report indicate three key trends. First, women who were parents had substantially lower median personal incomes than men who were parents. Second, men who were parents earned markedly higher personal incomes than all women, but also men without children. Third, of the social, economic, and demographic factors examined in this report the principal determining factor which may be used to understand these disparities was the number of hours worked per week.

In the following section, I point out some of the data sources available for multigenerational research and then focus on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I illustrate its use with a brief, original analysis of multigenerational educational mobility in the United States. The final section provides a brief summary of each contribution included here.

No region of the United States fared worse over the postwar period than the Rust Belt, the heavy manufacturing zone bordering the Great Lakes. We argue that a lack of competition in labor and output markets in the Rust Belt were responsible for much of the regions decline. We formalize this theory in a dynamic general-equilibrium model in which productivity growth and regional employment shares are determined by the extent of competition. When plausibly calibrated, the model explains roughly half the decline in the Rust Belts manufacturing employment share. Industry evidence support the models predictions that investment and productivity growth rates were relatively low in the Rust Belt.

This paper links data on establishments and individuals to analyze the role of establishments in the increase in inequality that has become a central topic in economic analysis and policy debate. It decomposes changes in the variance of log earnings among individuals into the part due to changes in earnings among establishments and the part due to changes in earnings within-establishments and finds that much of the 1970s-2010s increase in earnings inequality results from increased dispersion of the earnings among the establishments where individuals work. It also shows that the divergence of establishment earnings occurred within and across industries and was associated with increased variance of revenues per worker. Our results direct attention to the fundamental role of establishment-level pay setting and economic adjustments in earnings inequality.

This study examines the concentration of household income in the United States between 1990 and 2010, using data on household income from the U.S. Census Bureau. It measures the distribution of income among different earning percentiles and actual income-earning categories. Additionally, it uses the Gini index of inequality and its changes over time as an indicator of income concentration.

We employ a two-stage random utility model (RUM) to estimate people' marginal willingess to pay (WTP) for enhancing community-level floodplain management activities reflected in the National flood insurance program (NFIP)'s Community Rating System (CRS) program. CRS is a voluntary program, which provides the participating communities with discounts on flood insurance premium in exchange for strengthened flood protection activities. Results show that people with different demographics react differently to flood risk and generally value flood protection activities. We find that among the CRS program activities, people place the highest value on activities concerning repetitive flood loss reduction, with the second highest being public information disclosure about flood risk. In addition, results suggest that people significantly value structural mitigation projects such as flood- and bebris- control dams. Importantly, our results suggest that water body as an amenity measure is perceived positively in people's location choices, nonetheless flood risk information disclosure diminishes the amenity value.

We present a model of human capital investment within and across generations, with incomplete markets and government transfer programs. Our model combines a fairly standard life-cycle model of human capital with an intergenerational model la Becker and Tomes (1986). The human capital technology features multiple stages of investment during childhood, a college decision, and on-the-job accumulation. The model can jointly explain a wide range of intergenerational relationships, such as the intergenerational elasticities (IGE) of lifetime earnings, education, poverty and wealth, while remaining empirically consistent with cross-sectional inequality. Unlike previous models, intergenerationally constrained families have similar IGEs as the unconstrained families. Exogenous ability transmission has a modest impact on the IGE in partial equilibrium, but this effect disappears in general equilibrium. On the other hand, investment in children and parents human capital have a large impact on the equilibrium IGE. Education subsidies and progressive taxation can significantly reduce the persistence in economic status across generations.

This research aims to develop a valid and consistent measure for socioeconomic status at the household level using census microdata from developing countries available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series - International (IPUMS-I), the world's largest census database. We use principal components analysis to compute a wealth index based on asset ownership, utilities, and dwelling characteristics. The validation strategies include comparing our proposed index with the widely used Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) wealth indices and verifying socioeconomic gradients on school enrollment and educational attainment. Graphical analysis of kernel distributions suggests that our measure is valid. Results also show a consistently positive effect of the wealth index on education outcomes. Furthermore, using a stepwise elimination procedure, we identify conditions to produce an internally consistent asset index given that the availability of indicators varies considerably for census microdata. As an important practical implication of results, the proposed methodology suggests which assets are more important in determining household socioeconomic status.