A growing literature suggests that high-income countries export high-quality goods. Two hypotheses may explain such specialization, with different implications for welfare, inequality, and trade policy. Fajgelbaum, Grossman,and Helpman (JPE 2011) formalize the Linder (1961) conjecture that home demand determines the pattern of specialization and therefore predict that high-income locations export high-quality products. The factor-proportions model also predicts that skill-abundant, high-income locations export skill-intensive, high-quality products (Schott, QJE 2004). Prior empirical evidence does not separate these explanations. I develop a model that nests both hypotheses and employ microdata on US manufacturing plants' shipments and factor inputs to quantify the two mechanisms' roles in quality specialization across US cities. Home-market demand explains at least as much of the relationship between income and quality as difference in factor usage.

The first African American to head a branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL), Regina Andrews led an extraordinary life. Allied with W. E. B. Du Bois, Andrews fought for promotion and equal pay against entrenched sexism and racism and battled institutional restrictions confining African American librarians to only a few neighborhoods within New York City. Andrews also played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance, supporting writers and intellectuals with dedicated workspace at her 135th Street Branch Library. After hours she cohosted a legendary salon that drew the likes of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Her work as an actress and playwright helped establish the Harlem Experimental Theater, where she wrote plays about lynching, passing, and the Underground Railroad. Ethelene Whitmire's new biography offers the first full-length study of Andrews' activism and pioneering work with the NYPL. Whitmire's portrait of her sustained efforts to break down barriers reveals Andrews's legacy and places her within the NYPL's larger history.

This thesis examines the relationship between public opinion and the way senators vote on specific issues, and how this "responsiveness" might vary across income groups. The independent variable of interest, state-level income group preference, is estimated using multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) analysis. This is an improvement over earlier methods, particularly when modeling income group level opinion where there are insufficient sample sizes in national surveys. Income group opinions are found to be distinct across issue areas and the top ten percent of the income bracket are found to hold different opinions when compared to a more inclusively defined high-income group. Ideal point estimation is used to generate the dependent variable of senator responsiveness based on roll call votes. The first-stage MRP estimates of state-level income group opinion are then regressed on the corresponding senators' ideal points by issue area. While this paper expected the second stage analysis to support an Instructed-delegate model of responsiveness, where senators vote in accordance with constituents' interests, no evidence of such a relationship is found, even at the aggregate opinion level. The evidence suggests that senators are looking elsewhere when making their policy decisions.

“We have a shared responsibility to create and implement strategies to realize the full potential of digital information for present and future generations,” according to the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY) Declaration [CoBabe‐Ammann et al., 2007]

In this paper, we revisit the relationship between educational and income inequalities in a historical perspective, using a newly developed annual dataset of average years of education in Europe. Theoretically one would expect a reduction in educational inequality should, given the positive correlation between education level and income, initially increase and then, at a later stage, reduce income inequality. Testing for such a Kuznets-type relationship between educational and income inequalities yields an unexpected result: we find the expected inverse U-curve before the 1950s, but the relationship changes into a normal U-curve afterward. We explain this observation by a change in the trend of skill premium during the second half of the twentieth century due to an increased relative demand for skills, which contradicts the usual assumption of decreasing returns to education. Due to lack of appropriate wage data, we cannot directly capture this effect. Yet, once we use an instrumental variable estimation method to filter out the effect of the omitted skill premium, the expected inverse U-curve also appears for the latter decades of the twentieth century.

Objective To study the impact of influenza vaccine administered to pregnant women during all trimesters on the rates of preterm and small for gestational age (SGA) births, evaluating both increased and decreased risk. Study design This retrospective observational matched cohort study involved 7 Vaccine Safety Datalink sites across the US for the 2004-05 through 2008-09 influenza seasons. Cohort eligibility and outcomes were determined from administrative, claims, medical records, and birth data. In propensity score– and vaccine exposure time–matched analyses, ORs for preterm and SGA births were calculated. Results Among 57 554 matched vaccinated and unvaccinated pregnant women, including 16 240 women in the first trimester, maternal vaccination was not associated with increased or decreased risk for preterm birth (OR for delivery at <37 weeks gestation, 0.97 [95% CI, 0.93-1.02]; for delivery at ≤32 weeks gestation, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.86-1.12]; and for delivery at ≤34 weeks gestation, 0.96 [95% CI, 0.88-1.04]) or SGA birth (OR for <5th percentile weight for gestational age, 1.02 [95% CI, 0.96-1.09], and for <10th percentile weight for gestational age, 1.00 [95% CI, 0.96-1.04]). Similarly, first trimester vaccination was not associated with increased or decreased risk for preterm or SGA birth. Conclusion Receipt of trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine during pregnancy was not associated with increased or decreased risk of preterm or SGA birth. These findings support the safety of vaccinating pregnant women against influenza during the first, second, and third trimesters, and suggest that a nonspecific protective effect of the influenza vaccine for these outcomes does not exist.

We develop a general equilibrium framework to determine the spatial distribution of economic activity on any surface with (nearly) any geography. Combining the gravity structure of trade with labor mobility, we provide conditions for the existence, uniqueness, and stability of a spatial economic equilibrium and derive a simple set of equations which govern the relationship between economic activity and the geography of the surface. We then use the framework to estimate the topography of trade costs, productivities and amenities in the United States. We find that geographic location accounts for at least twenty percent of the spatial variation in U.S. income. Finally, we calculate that the construction of the interstate highway system increased welfare by 1.1 to 1.4 percent, which is substantially larger than its cost.

Objective: To compare body-mass index (BMI)-related mortality risk in US Blacks vs. Whites as the relationship appears to differ across race/ethnicity groups.Design and Methods: We pooled cross-sectional surveys of nationally representative samples of 11,934 Blacks and 59,741 Whites aged 35-75 in the National Health Interview Survey from 1997-2002 with no history of cardiovascular disease or cancer. Mortality follow-up was available through 2006. BMI was calculated from self-reported height and weight. We used adjusted Cox regression analysis to adjust for potential confounders.Results: Over 9 years of follow-up, there were 4,303 deaths (1,205 among never smokers). Age-adjusted mortality rates were higher in Blacks compared to Whites at BMI < 25 kg/m2 and showed no increase at higher levels of BMI. In men, adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause death rose in a similar fashion across upper BMI quintiles in Blacks and Whites; in women, however, BMI was positively associated with mortality risk in Whites, but inversely associated in Blacks (p interaction = 0.01). Racial disparities were amplified in subsidiary analyses that introduced a 12-month lag for mortality or focused on CVD mortality.Conclusions: The relationship of elevated BMI to mortality appears weaker in US Blacks than in Whites, especially among women.

The econophysics two-class theory of Yakovenko and his co-authors shows that the distribution of labor incomes is roughly exponential. This paper extends this result to US subgroups categorized by gender and race. It is well known that Males have higher average incomes than Females, and Whites have higher average incomes than African-Americans. It is also evident that social policies can affect these income gaps. Our surprising finding is that nonetheless intra-group distributions of pre-tax labor incomes are remarkably similar and remain close to exponential. This suggests that income inequality can be usefully addressed by taxation policies, and overall income inequality can be modified by also shifting the balance between labor and property incomes.

Collaboration and data sharing have become core elements of biomedical research. Especially when sensitive data from distributed sources are linked, privacy threats have to be considered. Statistical disclosure control allows the protection of sensitive data by introducing fuzziness. Reduction of data quality, however, needs to be balanced against gains in protection. Therefore, tools are needed which provide a good overview of the anonymization process to those responsible for data sharing. These tools require graphical interfaces and the use of intuitive and replicable methods. In addition, extensive testing, documentation and openness to reviews by the community are important. Existing publicly available software is limited in functionality, and often active support is lacking. We present ARX, an anonymization tool that i) implements a wide variety of privacy methods in a highly efficient manner, ii) provides an intuitive cross-platform graphical interface, iii) offers a programming interface for integration into other software systems, and iv) is well documented and actively supported.

This study examines the density of polluting industry by neighborhoods in Baltimore over the long term, from 1950 to 2010, to determine if high pollution burdens correspond spatially with expected demographic and housing variables predicted in the environmental justice literature. For 19601980 we use data on heavy industry from Dun and Bradstreet directories and for 19902010 the US EPAs Toxics Release Inventory to calculate a Hazards Density Index. Drawing on the decennial censuses for 19602010, we populate census tracts from corresponding years with data on race, ethnicity, educational attainment, income, and housing tenure.

This dissertation makes two types of contributions. First, evidence on health safety net programs specifically in the 1960s is relevant to the often virulent claims and firmly held opinions about Johnsons Great Society. Only recently have researchers compiled the necessary data to evaluate the introduction of these programs rigorously. The three chapters outlined above suggest that Medicaid and CHCs generated significant and heretofore unknown benefits. Second, the introduction of these programs provides a unique opportunity to estimate their effects in a more general sense. More and more people have used of Medicaid and CHCs over time, but much of this growth was the result of individual choices or circumstances and, therefore, may not help identify these programs effects separately from other forces that determine their use. I argue that the introduction of Medicaid and CHCs (or aspects of their introduction) do provide unique quasi-experimental variation in poor families exposure to health safety net programs and can, therefore, contribute new evidence on whether and how these programs work. Thus, the effects of Medicaid and CHCs in the 1960s are of interest in their own right, and they provide valuable new evidence on the extent to which these programs work in general.

Indian and Chinese nationals comprise two of the largest foreign-born nationality groups in the United States and are growing rapidly. Indian and Chinese immigrants tend to enter the United States through skilled migration channels either pursuing further education, or entering on temporary work visas for specialty occupations and go on to enjoy higher employment rates and higher median household incomes than the US-born population. Despite these successes, these groups still face some integration challenges, like cultural integration and English language proficiency. Immigrant integration services in the United States are relatively decentralized, with crucial services provided by a wide array of actors. Federal funds are usually directed and supplemented by state and local government actors; who then work closely with civil society organizations, including Indian and Chinese diaspora groups, to provide support in areas like social services, language training, credential recognition, and naturalization assistance. Meanwhile, India and China are starting to expand their diaspora engagement activities to include integration services at destination.

The first book-length study of Latina/o experiences in World War II over a wide spectrum of identities and ancestriesfrom Cuban American, Spanish American, and Mexican American segments to the under-studied Afro-Latino experienceLatina/os and World War II probes the controversial aspects of Latina/o soldiering and citizenship in the war, the repercussions of which defined the West during the twentieth century. The editors also offer a revised, more accurate tabulation of the number of Latina/os who served in the war.

We investigate the effect of slavery on the current level of income inequality across US counties. We find that a larger proportion of slaves over population in 1860 persistently increases inequality, and in particular inequality across races. We also show that a crucial channel of transmission from slavery to racial inequality is human capital accumulation, i.e., current inequality is primarily influenced by slavery through the unequal educational attainment of blacks and whites. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that the underlying links run through the political exclusion of former slaves and the resulting negative influence on the local provision of education.

Even though, the American Civil War is considered as a seminal event in the history of the United States, there are not many empirical studies examining economic conditions of the Union and the Confederate states. Even though, economic conflict is not considered to be a cause of the Civil War, economic conditions after the war were vastly different in the Union and the Confederate states. The purpose of this study is to analyze the economic outcomes of individuals in the Confederate states and the Union states before and after the American Civil War using census data for 1860 and 1880. Our goal is to analyze the improvements in the occupation income scores. Since the slaves were freed, we also examine whether there was a reduction in the farm households.

Background Potentially harmful workplace conditions have been linked to occupationally-related illness and injury, costing billions of dollars in health care and lost wages. This study compares workers in the same jobs to see whether demographic differences in exposures persist. Methods Data were from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey. Descriptive analyses and logistic regression models controlling for job assessed differences in three exposures: 1) skin contact with chemicals, 2) vapors, gas, dust, and fumes, and 3) second-hand smoke among non-smokers. Results Comparing workers in the same jobs, women and college graduates experienced a lower risk of exposure. White workers experienced the highest risks of exposure, except for the heightened risk of second-hand smoke exposure faced by black non-smokers. Conclusion Disparities in exposure to chemicals, vapors, and second-hand smoke persist by sex, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment, even within the same jobs. Workplace policies should ensure safety equally for all employees.

Is expanding the electorate an important part of inducing a population to accept mass education? It has been argued that a decentralized and democratic United States polity produced more primary schooling circa 1850 than Britains more centralized and less egalitarian electoral system. Re-analyzing census data, Parliamentary reports, and election results, I find the perceived American advantage in regard to enrollments is due to an underestimation of the population at risk, a conflation of enrollments with attendance, and differences in the length of school terms. In neither northern or southern counties in the U.S. did the extension of the franchise correlate with more tax dollars for elementary schools; rather it materialized in counties with more Whig and moral reform partisans motivated by the same type of external benefits/ social control objectives as those attributed to British bureaucrats. Greater similarities in educational status may have existed in this early stage of mass schooling than is often acknowledged. In both places, tepid interest in greater amounts of schooling is correlated with high levels of agricultural employment and cultural/racial diversity, although the spread of a high fertility population into low density areas presented the United States with a special challenge. These results suggest that the effects of late nineteenth-century compulsory attendance and other schooling legislation merit a re-evaluation.

This paper examines the impact of social heterogeneity on in-kind redistribution. We contribute to the previous literature in two ways: we consider i) the provision of several public goods and ii) agents different not only in income, but also in their preferences over the various goods provided by the public sector. In this setting, both the distribution and size of goods provision depend on the heterogeneity of preferences. Our main result is that preference heterogeneity tends to decrease in-kind redistribution, while income inequality tends to increase it. An empirical investigation based on United States Census Bureau data confirms these theoretical findings.