The relationship between cigarette smoking and negative health outcomes at the individual level is well-known and has been thoroughly described in the literature. Individual smokers are at substantially increased risk of chronic disease and mortality from a variety of different causes of death. However, there has been less attention to the potential for differences in cigarette smoking to produce differentials in health and mortality across populations. The goal of this dissertation is to examine the extent to which smoking operates as a factor determining mortality at the population level. Chapter 1 extends a new indirect method for estimating smoking-attributable mortality and applies it to geographic variation in adult mortality in the United States. Chapter 2 examines whether the adult mortality advantage of Hispanics compared to non-Hispanic whites in the US derives from Hispanics’ relatively low rates of smoking. Chapter 3 investigates the underlying explanations for Mexican immigrants’ relatively favorable smoking behavior. The results suggest that cigarette smoking is an important factor producing geographic disparities in mortality and the principal reason for Hispanics’ survival advantage over whites. Furthermore, there is no evidence that selective migration of non-smokers explains low rates of smoking among Mexican migrants in the United States. This dissertation makes both methodological and substantive contributions to the study of cigarette smoking, expanding current methods for estimating smoking-attributable deaths and demonstrating examples of the population-level impact of smoking.

This paper explores whether baby boomers might relocate from suburban neighborhoods to more centrally located areas as they retire. A robust approach to evaluate migrations by age groups is used to analyze Census micro-data over four censuses and twenty years for Canada's six largest cities. First, and original method is developed to classify spatial units as urban and suburban, next disaggregated data on movers is analyzed graphically, then with a trend analysis and finally through the use of logistic regression. Taken all together, results do not suggest that boomers will dramatically change previous patterns and move increasingly to the city.

We show that the hedging benefit of owning a home reduces the variability of housing consumption after a move. When a current home owner's house price covaries positively with housing costs in a future city, changes in the future cost of housing are offset by commensurate changes in wealth before the move. Using Census micro-data, we find that the cross-sectional variation in house values subsequent to a move is lower for home owners who moved between more highly covarying cities. Our preferred estimates imply that an increase in covariance of one standard deviation reduces the variance of subsequent housing consumption by about 11%. Households at the top end of the covariance distribution who are likely to have owned large homes before moving get the largest reductions, of up to 40% relative to households at the median. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Recent theoretical advances reveal the importance of human capital for long-run economic growth. However, the absence of data makes it difficult to measure human capital before 1870 at the national level, let alone at the regional level within countries. By using the age heaping method and a large, new data set, we approximate the numeracy values in more than 570 regions in Europe between 1790 and 1880. The results indicate a significant gap in numeracy levels between advanced west and central European countries and the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, differences in basic numeracy between and within countries became smaller over the nineteenth century, as the periphery solved its basic numeracy problem.

This study was prepared by Sven Neelsen while he was working with the ifo Institute for Economic Research. It was completed in December 2011 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in May 2012. The study investigates long-run effects of early-life living conditions using micro-datasets from three countries. The employed empirical strategies aim to identify causal relationships between early-life living conditions and the outcomes of interest. Chapter 1 analyzes effects of early-life exposure to the Greek 1941/2 famine on school and labor-market performance. I find famine exposure in the first and second years of life to be associated with lower educational attainment in four waves of the Greek decennial census between 1971 and 2001. Chapter 2 estimates long-run effects of fetal exposure to the 1918-19 influenza pandemic for Switzerland. Using data from the 1970 Swiss census, I find that the male 1919 cohort that had a strongly increased likelihood of fetal exposure to the pandemic performs significantly worse in terms of educational attainment and has a lower chance of marriage than the surrounding cohorts. Chapter 3 examines mid-run effects of early childhood exposure to a large-scale Indonesian midwife placement program. Using panel data from the 1993, 1997, 2000, and 2007 waves of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, I find improvements in height-for-age and cognitive skill for adolescents with exposure to the program during infancy.

We use a frictionless neoclassical general-equilibrium model to explain cross-metro variation in population density and other urban quantities based on 3 broad amenity types: quality of life, productivity in tradeables, and productivity in non-tradeables. Analytically, we demonstrate the dependence of quantities on amenities through substitution possibilities in consumption and production. Our calibrated model predicts large elasticities, consistent with variation in U.S. data, and some empirical estimates of local labor supply. From only differences in wages and housing costs, we explain half of the variation in density, especially through quality-of-life amenities. We also show density density information can provide or refine measures of land value and local productivity.

Despite the economic downturn, most states have maintained and even improved childrens eligibility for Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by expanding eligibility to additional groups of children, improving enrollment and retention systems, and implementing new policy options available under the 2009 Childrens Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA). Income eligibility for children is relatively high: the median threshold is now 250 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), which is much higher than it is for parents. Using the 20082010 American Community Survey (ACS), this analysis suggests that both eligibility and participation increased for children over this time period, with participation reaching nearly 86 percent nationally in 2010 and increasing among most subgroups and states. As a result, the number of eligible uninsured children declined, reaching 4.4 million in 2010. In contrast, participation rates were lower for parents, both nationally and in every state, though states that had relatively higher/lower participation rates among children were more likely to also have relatively higher/lower participation rates among parents. This analysis suggests that CHIPRA may have contributed to increased take-up of Medicaid/CHIP among children, but that additional efforts will be needed, particularly among parents, to achieve high levels of Medicaid enrollment under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The daily lives of individuals involved in sex work differ from the mainstream experience in many ways. These individuals experience multiple risks each day, including high rates of poverty, instable housing, high mortality rates, substance abuse and victimization, among other oppressions. Common notions of sex work still revolve around the antiquated view of sex workers as commodities, with little attention paid to the humanistic aspects of sex workers lives. In order to address this gap, the current study explored the utility of a humanizing conceptual framework, the Capability Approach, in predicting sex work involvement. It is hypothesized that lower capability would predict sex work involvement among a substance-abusing sample. Results suggest that the Capability Approach can be used to differentiate between sex workers and their substance-abusing counterparts, and that gender and race influence how capability predicts sex work. The current findings support recent calls in the literature for the development of tailored services to meet the needs of this population in a humanizing, rather than oppressive, way.

This paper studies the dynamic effect of networks on location and occupation decisions of immigrants to the United States between 1900 and 1930. We compare the distributions of immigrants both by intended and actual state of residence to counterfactual distributions constructed by allocating the national-level flows according to the distribution of previous immigrants and to measures of demand for occupations at the state level. Our results are consistent with migrants using ethnic networks as a transitory mechanism while they learn about their new labor markets and not with other hypotheses that do not account for the dynamic patterns we document.

Due to rapid expansion in size of the Hispanic American population, Latinos are exerting an ever growing influence on the economy and culture of the United States. At the same time, their own views and lifestyles are being reshaped by exposure to the rest of American society. Hispanics’ patterns of adjustment to and interaction with the surrounding environment are sure to have important implications for the group’s long-term socioeconomic attainment as well as for general societal well-being. In light of the salience of the issues involved, this dissertation explores in- depth a few specific facets of the process of Hispanic incorporation into American society. Chapter 1 focuses on how compositional factors (e.g. women’s economic resources, mate availability) affect the marriage rates of Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans relative to those of non-Hispanic whites and blacks. Chapter 2 examines whether the migration of Latino workers to rural areas with burgeoning Hispanic populations impinges on the economic outcomes of established residents. Chapter 3 investigates patterns of occupational segregation by ethnicity in the rural South to gauge labor market competition between Latino migrants and the region’s longer-settled groups. The three studies yield several noteworthy findings. Chapter 1 documents that Mexican American and white women marry at rates well above those of Puerto Rican and, especially, African American women. In addition, the results suggest that Latinas’ limited economic resources reduce their likelihood of marrying vis-à-vis whites and blacks, while their larger supply of stably employed men and higher probability of being foreign-born raise their comparative marriage odds. Chapter 2 provides evidence that growth in the Latino share of the workforce in new rural destinations leads to somewhat less desirable income and poverty trajectories for non-Hispanics. Chapter 3 shows that Hispanics in the rural South experience a large degree of occupational segregation from whites and African Americans and rank below both of these groups in occupational status on average. Furthermore, low levels of English proficiency, US citizenship, and educational attainment largely account for the disadvantaged labor market position of Hispanic workers.

In direct contrast to conventional wisdom and most economic models of marital age gaps, we present robust evidence that men and women who are married to differently-aged spouses are negatively selected. Empirical results show striking evidence of lower cognitive ability, lower educational attainment, lower occupational wages, lower earnings, and even less attractive appearance among those married to an older or younger spouse. These results, all obtained controlling for age of marriage in samples of first marriages, are consistent with a model in which individuals who obtain more years of formal schooling and enter occupations with greater upward mobility interact more heavily with similarly-aged peers and are ultimately more likely to marry similarly-aged spouses.

Dropping out of high school has been declared an educational crisis in the United States with national and individual consequences. In New Mexico, adult dropouts only option for a high school credential has been a GED. In August 2010, Graduate New Mexico (GNM), an online asynchronous program, was implemented to help adult dropouts earn a high school diploma. The program was closed in March 2011. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors related to successful course completion of the GNM program that helped returning dropout students complete online course work. Using a qualitative design and interviews as the method of inquiry, 23 students, the full-time teachers, and administrators were interviewed. Three main research questions and related sub-questions were asked to seek out reasons for dropping out of high school, the impact dropping out had on their lives, the reason for returning to school, and the factors they identified that made them successful in the GNM course work.

This research aims to present the results obtained from the analysis of neighborhoods ranking in the metropolitan areas with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Using data from the American Housing Survey for the year 2000, we estimate an ordered logit model to explain the neighborhood quality adjustments in the American metropolitan areas and their determinants. Results show that the neighborhood subjective evaluation varies with the householder log-income, education level and age whereas the objective evaluation is explained by the presence of green areas, shopping malls, access roads and schools. Household characteristics as the number of household members and their activities, dwelling characteristics such as the number of available rooms, facility access, and the surrounding environment defined by the presence of elementary and secondary schools, shops, presence of public means of transport, low levels of noise, green spaces and the age of the nearby units are significant attributes that influence the quality of neighborhoods. Their impact on mobility and location of dwelling choices is measured.

Although there are few confirmed risk factorsfor prostate cancer (PCa), mortality rates are known to vary geographically across the United States. PCa mortality is higher among black and younger white men in a band of states spanning from Washington DC to Louisiana. This study assessed the associations of birth and adult residence in the PCa belt with PCa mortality among black and white men and trends in these associations over time. PCa-specific mortality rates in 1980, 1990, and 2000 for black and white men born in the continental US, aged 4089, were calculated by linking national mortality records with population data based on birth state, state of residence at the census, race, and age. PCa birth wascross-classified against PCa belt adult residence. Black men born in the PCa belt had elevated PCa mortality in 1980, 1990, and 2000. Associations were independent of adult residence in the PCa belt. For example, in 2000, black men aged 6589 who were born in the PCa belt but no longer lived there in adulthood had an odds ratio of 1.19 (1.141.24) for PCa mortality compared to black men born and residing outside the PCa belt. The PCa belt was not associated with PCa mortality among whites. Geographically patterned childhood exposures, for example, differences in social or environmental conditions, or behavioral norms, may influence PCa mortality.

The New Family Structures Study (NFSS) is a social-science data-collection project that fielded a survey to a large, random sample of American young adults (ages 1839) whowere raised in different types of family arrangements. In this debut article of the NFSS, I compare how the young-adult children of a parent who has had a same-sex romantic relationship fare on 40 different social, emotional, and relational outcome variables when comparedwith six other family-of-origin types. The results reveal numerous, consistent differences, especially between the children of women who have had a lesbian relationshipand those with still-married (heterosexual) biological parents. The results are typically robust in multivariate contexts as well, suggesting far greater diversity in lesbian-parent household experiences than convenience-sample studies of lesbian families have revealed. The NFSS proves to be an illuminating, versatile dataset that can assist family scholars in understanding the long reach of family structure and transitions.

Homeownership is thought to be an important contributor to the economic and social well--being of individuals and communities, and as such has been supported by years of federal and state policy. One such state policy in support of homeownership is the Emerging Markets Homeownership Initiative convened by the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency (Minnesota Housing), the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and Fannie Mae in 2004. Since the initiative was developed in 2004, the U.S. has undergone a housing crisis and the ensuing recession, and there have been massive changes in the state of homeownership. It is likely that the crisis has affected households of varying races, income, geography, and education differently, including who has access to homeownership and who has the ability to successfully sustain homeownership. Because of the important role homeownership is thought to play, and the drastic changes to the housing market in recent years, examining recent changes to White-- minority homeownership gaps is critical. Further, the particular characteristics of the homeownership market in Minnesota cause this to be an important area of study. As of 2009, while the state of Minnesota had the highest overall homeownership rate in the nation (at73.7 percent), it had the fifth largest White--minority gap in homeownership rates (at 34.1 percentage points)(Grover & Patterson 2010). Further, preliminary data analysis indicates that the situation in Minnesota has worsened, and that as of 2011, Minnesota continued to have the highest overall homeownership rate in the nation (at 72.8 percent), but now with the largest White-Minority gap in homeownership rates in the nation (at 38.7 percentage points). In addition, an increasing percentage of Minnesota residents are minorities, with this trend projected to continue so that minorities will represent nearly 25 percent of Minnesotas population by 2035 (Grover & Patterson 2010).

This article questions whether the implementation of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) created an incentive for employers to substitute subsidized workers for incumbent workers. To see if this substitution occurs, the author uses a differences-in-differences methodology to test whether the implementation of the WOTC caused both an increase in employment from a representative target group and a decrease in employment of a group that is a close substitute for members of the target group. The author finds no evidence that subsidized worker substitution occurred in the period after the WOTC was implemented. There is evidence that the WOTC is effective in increasing the employment rates of long-term welfare recipients.