This thesis examines the time-use patterns of adults in dual-earner households with and without children as a function of several individual and household socio-demographics and employment characteristics. A disaggregate activity purpose classification including both in-home and out-of-home activity pursuits is used because of the travel demand relevance of out-of-home pursuits, as well as to examine both mobility-related and general time-use related social exclusion and time poverty issues. The study uses the Nested Multiple Discrete Continuous Extreme Value (MDCNEV) model, which recognizes that time-decisions entail the choice of participating in one or more activity purposes along with the amount of time to invest in each chosen activity purpose, and allows generic correlation structures to account for common unobserved factors that might impact the choice of multiple alternatives. The 2010 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data is used for the empirical analysis. A major finding of the study is that the presence of a child in dual-earner households not only leads to a reduction in in-home activity participation but also a substantially larger decrease in out-of-home activity participation, suggesting a higher level of mobility-related social exclusion relative to overall time-use social exclusion. To summarize, the results in the thesis underscore the importance of re-designing work policies in the United States to facilitate a reduction in work-family conflict in dual-earner families.

Leading empiricists and theorists of cities have recently argued that the generation and exchange of ideas must play a more central role in the analysis of cities. This paper develops the first system of cities model with costly idea exchange as the agglomeration force. Our model replicates a broad set of established facts about the cross section of cities. It provides the first spatial equilibrium theory of why skill premia are higher in larger cities, how variation in these premia emerges from symmetric fundamentals, and why skilled workers have higher migration rates than unskilled workers when both are fully mobile.

I propose a stylized model of the house-selling process in which sellers possess incomplete information regarding the state of the housing market. Consistent with the data, the model generates a negative correlation between house prices and time on market. This result is robust to the presence of real estate agents with complete information. I construct a measure of homeowner perceptions of house prices and compare them to market-based house price indices to form a misperceptions index for house prices. An increase in homeowners perceptions relative to actual prices is associated with a decrease in sales volumes, with price misperceptions explaining over one-fifth of the within-state variation in sales volumes from 2000 to 2010.

The traditional social ecology of the stereotypical American metropolis the sectors and zones of Murdies famous model (1969) of factorial ecology has long disappeared. In this article, we explore high-resolution changes to the spatial structure of socioeconomic development in U.S. suburban areas for a long panel of post-war data. We build an evolving social ecological description of modern American suburbanism and systematically evaluate the trajectory and extent of changes that took place in post-Fordist suburbia based on an analysis of decennial census tract data between 1960 and 2000 for every metropolitan region in the United States. Specifically, this article makes a number of contributions to the literature: We identify an intuitive set of six clusters that characterize the principal suburban social ecologies of the post-war metropolitan United States. We describe the changing social ecologies of suburban areas in term of our clusters, paying particular attention to regional differences in the relationship between sitcom suburbs and the process of suburbanization of at the level of metropolitan areas. We identify a number of stylized facts: First, the decline of sitcom suburbs is not simply the symmetrical analog of their rise. Second, the duration of the sitcom cycle is characterized by large amounts of local heterogeneity in terms of its intensity and in terms of its duration. Third, there is a close connection between change in the social ecologies of U.S. suburbs and the joint processes of urban growth and suburbanization.

This paper studies the important phenomenon of out- migration from the U.S. during the first half of the 20thcentury. Who were the immigrants who left after a temporary stay? What was the impact of these workers' outflow onthe U.S.? The paper shows that during the first three decades of the 20th century the out-migrants were primarily low skilled workers, so out-migrants' selectivity might have implied an overly optimistic view of immigrant assimilation. This paper also demonstrates that out-migration had a positive effect on the wages of remaining U.S. workers (though immigration had the expected negative impact).

This dissertation consists of three essays on labor force outcomes that result from implementation of statewide policies. The first essay, "Division of Labor and Marital Institutions: Evidence from Same-Sex Marriage", tests Becker's theory on household division of labor and wages with regards to individuals in same-sex partnerships relative to those in heterosexual partnerships. Results indicate that same-sex couples who identify as married have wage differentials similar to those of a heterosexual married couple. Married gay heads of household receive a wage premium relative to unmarried gay heads of household while married gay partners receive a wage penalty relative to unmarried gay partners. Evidence also suggests greater division of labor in married same-sex household compared to unmarried same-sex holds. The second essay, "Legal Protections and Marital Investment", tests the impact of legal recognition of same-sex partnerships. Results suggest same-sex marriage and civil unions increase the wage differentials of married same-sex partnerships, while domestic partnerships result in wage penalties for married homosexuals. The third essay, "Non-Discrimination Laws, Mobility, and Labor Outcomes", tests the labor force outcomes for heterosexuals and homosexuals in states with laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Results do not provide significant evidence that gay men and women have better labor force outcomes in states with non-discrimination laws. It appears that laws designed to improve the labor force outcomes of homosexuals do not have much significant impact while laws targeting non-pecuniary aspects of their lives have significant results on wages.

This paper asks whether worker utility levelscomposed of wages, rents, and amenitiesare being equalized among American cities. Using microdata on U.S. urban workers in 1980 and 2000, little evidence of equalization is found. Comparable workers earn higher real wages in large cities, where amenities are also concentrated. Moreover, population growth between 1980 and 2000 has not been significantly different in low- and high-utility cities, suggesting that other forces are at work shaping the sorting processes that match workers and firms. We outline an alternative view of the drivers of change in the American urban system, and urban development more generally, by applying theory from economic geography.

This paper empirically analyzes the effect of immigration on state-level mean wages. The data is taken from the 50 US states and Washington, DC for 2006 through 2010. The dependent variable is measured as the change in the log of mean weekly wages for each state. The key independent variable is the change in the foreign born labor force of each state. Lagged variables are included to control for the composition of local labor markets. Educational attainment, occupation, and industry groups are tested using F-tests in order to determine their inclusion in the equation. The results indicate that as the foreign born population grows, there is a statistically significant negative effect on the upward volatility of wages. Copyright of Pennsylvania Economic Review is the property of Pennsylvania Economic Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.

Las estadísticas de migración internacional constituyen el punto más débil de la información demográfica. En la actualidad un numeroso conjunto de países no poseen registros de esta naturaleza y los datos que utilizan proceden, por lo general, de censos realizados en intervalos decenales, siendo éstos incapaces de captar los cambios cíclicos de la migración internacional. El propósito de este trabajo es presentar la metodología y los resultados obtenidos en una nueva fuente de información sobre los flujos migratorios internacionales de Colombia desarrollada por el Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE). Esta fuente se nutre de los registros individuales de viajeros recogidos por Migración Colombia en el control fronterizo aéreo, marítimo, terrestre y fluvial. Con esta información, el equipo técnico del DANE encargado de la temática de migraciones está llevando a cabo una estimación de los flujos migratorios de entrada y salidas del país, adaptados a la definición de Naciones Unidas sobre migraciones internacionales. La nueva base de datos contiene información demográfica (sexo y fecha de nacimiento), geográfica de origen y destino (país de nacionalidad, nacimiento y residencia), socioeconómica (ocupación, motivo del viaje), y condición jurídica (tipo de visa). Debido a la especial ubicación geográfica de Colombia, casi el 90 por ciento de las entradas y salidas desde y hacia otros países se llevan a cabo a través del transporte aéreo, lo que garantiza un alto grado de cobertura de esta fuente. Los datos de este estudio proceden de los flujos de 41.766.428 viajes internacionales registrados en el período 2004-2010. La metodología implementada permite reconstruir los itinerarios de viaje de 9.584.315 personas en el mismo período, quiénes son sometidas a diferentes algoritmos para obtener su estatus migratorio. En este trabajo se presenta la metodología de estimación de los flujos migratorios y una comparación con los datos registrados en países como España unos de los principales destinos de la emigración colombiana y sobre el cual poseemos información detallada así como los flujos que proporciona la base de datos de International Migration Flows to and from Selected Countries: The 2010 Revision (web-based database) de Naciones Unidas, prueba de la robustez de la base de datos y del método de estimación de flujos migratorios.

This thesis consists of three chapters. All three are linked by our desire to bet- ter understand the determinants of labour migration; that is, the motivation for a person to change his or her location of residence for a period of at least a year.1 While immigration receives much public discourse, the economic evidence on how migrants self-select is still lacking. In particular, we have little evidence on the relative importance of determinants. We focus on three areas that have re- ceived substantially less attention in the migration literature: the importance of relative versus absolute income motives for migration; the effect of wealth and intertemporal choice on return migration; and the role of place attachment as an obstacle to labour mobility. Common to all three chapters is an emphasis on counterbalancing forces that tend to offset spatial income differentials in deter- mining migration. The first chapter examines the extent to which relative income – that is, one’s position in the income distribution – matters in migration choice. Virtually all studies of migration focus on absolute income. This is at odds with the mount- ing evidence that suggests people care about their relative position in the income distribution. We argue that, in order to test between the absolute income and relative income theories of migration, one needs individual-level panel data on before and after migration outcomes. Indeed, since one has to estimate coun- terfactual migrant earnings of non-migrants, if migrants are selected on unob- servables then cross-sectional estimates will systematically bias the predicted migrant earnings of non-migrants. We estimate the relative importance of the two main theories in explaining interstate migration in the U.S. using a panel of individuals. Relative income is calculated with respect to those persons in the same U.S. state. We find that, although migration leads to a substantial rise in absolute income, the trigger for migration is low relative income and not low absolute income. In the second chapter we show analytically that, under some conditions, re- turn migration is optimal. We build a model where consumers choose either to never migrate, permanently migrate or, migrate and subsequently return. To generate an incentive for return migration, the model assumes a nominal income differential between the source and destination and a compensating differential – which exerts a counterbalancing force to the income differential. Examples of compensating differentials may include differences between the source and des- tination in climate, place attachment, price levels, unemployment and average consumption. We characterise the optimal migration decision space with respect to the three key variables: initial wealth, the income differential and the compen- sating differential between the source and destination. The marginal utility of consumption is assumed to be location-dependent due to a non-separable non- pecuniary preference for the source. Consequently, when the region with the best economic opportunities is not the source region, there is a trade-off between income maximisation on the one hand and the marginal utility of consumption on the other. We find that, all else equal, those with low wealth are more likely to migrate and, conditional on migration, those with higher wealth are more likely to return migrate. The third chapter seeks to estimate a key obstacle to migration: place attach- ment. Place attachment refers to the emotional bonds a person feels towards the place (or area) he or she resides. We estimate place attachment within a struc- tural model of spatial job search where migration is a by-product of accepting a job offer from another region. The chapter can broadly be split into two parts. The first takes a standard job search model and adapts it to allow search in many potential destinations. Acceptance of an offer from a destination necessarily in- volves migration to that destination and its associated costs. We consider two types of costs: a cost of migration that is related to distance-to-destination and a non-pecuniary cost of leaving the current region. The latter is deemed to be the negative of place attachment. In the second part, we estimate the structural model for a sample of individual durations in a U.S. state. Our estimates sug- gest that place attachment is steeply increasing in duration for our reduced-form model; however, the opposite is true for our structural model. We also find that for half the population, the dollar values of place attachment are prohibitively large.

This study uses data from the 2000 U.S. census to examine whether the schooling advantage of black immigrants children found in previous studies is robust. According to the results, the advantage associated with having migrant parents is not restricted to the children of immigrants. Black migrant parents, regardless of foreign-born status, have children with favorable schooling outcomes. Such parental-level influences, however, seem stronger among some immigrant groups than among native internal migrants. The study also suggests that the collective advantage of the children of immigrants is driven by positive migrant selectivity. Accordingly, comparisons between the children of native migrants and children in various immigrant groups reveal that the immigrant advantage is not robust. In fact, the results suggest that when immigrant ethnicity is considered, some children of immigrants may be disadvantaged relative to the children of native migrants. Among recent migrants, the children of native internalmigrants also have more favorable outcomes than the children of immigrants, although these differences disappear after background factors are controlled. Further, internal migrant and immigrant households are less likely to have characteristics that adversely affect schooling than nonmigrant households. Unsurprisingly, the children of nonmigrants have the worst outcomes among black youths.

In this brief we describe an important decision that should be considered in analyses of health insurance coverage using survey data: Defining the "family unit" for examining insurance coverage, often called the health insurance unit. We propose a general definition of the health insurance unit and provide Stata and SAS code to facilitate implementing that definition.

This article analyzes whether state and local public employees are overpaid at the expense of taxpayers. In 2011, forty-one states struggled with a cumulative total of $120 billion in budget deficits.1 Many states identified excessive public employee compensation as a major cause of their fiscal duress and proposed: pay freezes; benefits reductions; privatization; major collective bargaining revisions; the elimination of collective bargaining; and constitutional amendments to limit pay increases. 2 Each change was asserted to be a necessary antidote to the public employee overpayment malady. Wisconsin eliminated meaningful collective bargaining for most public employees, while the legislation passed and later repealed in Ohio would have seriously eroded the scope of bargaining and eliminated dispute resolution procedures and rights.3 The data analysis, however, indicate that state and local public employees are not overpaid. Comparisons controlling for education, experience, hours of work, gender, race, ethnicity, and disability reveal no significant overpayment. Instead, the data reveal that on a perhour basis, public employees are slightly undercompensated when compared to similar private-sector employees. As illustrated below, full-time state and local employees are, on average, undercompensated by 5.6%. The public employee compensation penalty is smaller for local government employees (4.1%) than state government workers (8.3%). Section I of this article analyzes demographic data to measure the difference in education and benefits between public- and privatesector employees and concludes with a total compensation analysis. Section II addresses and dispels common criticisms of my research. Finally, section III concludes that public employees are not overcompensated and . . .

There are substantial differences in output per worker across states that have persisted over time. This study demonstrates that in the context of a neoclassical growth model, differences in marginal tax rates on income from capital investment, capital ownership, and consumption will lead to persistent differences in labor productivity across states. These theoretical predictions are supported, using data on state marginal tax rates and output per worker over the 1977-2008 sample period. Over that period, the mix of state tax policies has led to a reduction in labor productivity averaging almost 2.8% per year. The implied adverse effect of tax distortions on labor productivity across states is substantial, varying from -1.6% in Nevada to -3.9% in New York. On the other hand, government expenditure policies explain none of the variation in labor productivity across states or time. Results allow rankings of state tax structures by their adverse impacts on productivity and by their efficiency at raising revenue relative to lost productivity

This study addresses the indirect impacts of state-mandated workers compensation benefits on workers wages. The benefit structure of workers compensation causes a fundamental estimation problem. I develop a new strategy to limit the biases inherent in earlier models. I utilize individual-level census data (between 1940 and 1990) to exploit benefit variation that occurs both across states and within the fifty states over time. The results suggest wage offsets are not constant across time and may be larger for workers at lower wage-levels.

How do offshoring and immigration affect the employment of native workers? What kinds of jobs suffer, or benefit, most from the competition created by offshore and immigrant workers? In contrast to the existing literature that has mostly looked at the effects of offshoring and immigrationseparately, we argue that one can gain useful insights by jointly investigating the interactions among native, immigrant and offshore workers. We develop our argument in three steps. First, we present some new facts on 58 U.S. manufacturing industries from 2000 to 2007. Second, we build on Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (2008) to design a model of task assignment among heterogeneous native, immigrant and offshore workers that fits those facts. Third, we use the model to draw systematic predictions about the effects of immigration and offshoring on native workers and we testthese predictions on the data. We find that, within the manufacturing sector, immigrants do not compete much with natives, as these two groups of workers are relatively specialized in tasks at opposite ends of the skill intensity spectrum. Offshore workers, on the other hand, seem to bespecialized in tasks of intermediate skill intensity. We also find that offshoring has no effect on native employment in the aggregate, while the effect of immigration on native employment is positive. This hints at the presence of a productivity effect" whereby offshoring and immigration improve industry efficiency, thereby creating new jobs.

After going up steadily for the last century, the female labor force participation (FLFP) rate in the United States suddenly leveled off in the early 1990s. Using March Current Population Survey data from 1968 to 2010, I investigate changes in FLFP rates and related socioeconomic outcomes of women. I find that, to a first approximation, the plateau in FLFP can be characterized as a leveling off in labor force participation for birth cohorts from the 1950s on. I also conduct a series of shiftshare analyses that decompose changes in labor force participation into within-group and composition effects, with groups defined by educational attainment, marital status, and child-rearing status. These analyses show that both the rising FLFP up through the cohorts of the early 1950s and the subsequent plateau appear within virtually all groups. The main qualification to this simple summary is that, among women under the age of 30, rising FLFP continued beyond the cohorts of the early 1950s up through those of the early 1970s. The prolonged upward trend in that age group was closely intertwined with the trends away from early marriage and childbearing. I recommend that this constellation of facts be used to guide further research on the causes of trend shifts in womens labor force participation and related socioeconomic outcomes.

This dissertation offers a close examination of the East European Jewish and Italian immigrant populations of three Texas cities—Dallas, Galveston, and Houston—at the turn of the century. Using statistical data derived from the 1900 and 1920 United States federal manuscript censuses, as well as information gathered from a variety of sources including newspapers, census directories, and religious organization records, it weaves together a narrative of the immigrant experience of two populations that receive little scholarly attention in studies of Texas history. Much of the history of southern and eastern European immigrants has been placed in the large immigrant centers of the north and northeastern United States. Despite the relatively small size of the East European Jewish and Italian immigrant populations in Texas’ cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these two groups helped shape the economic and cultural landscape of three of the state’s largest urban areas. Through a comparison with East European Jewish and Italian immigrants in other major U.S. cities, it is apparent that the immigrants who settled in Texas cities were not particularly unique in terms of gender distribution, marital status, literacy, or ability to speak English. They were, however, far more likely to be involved in low status white collar occupations, notably as small business owners. Immigrants in these positions, unlike those working as wage laborers in the employ of another, achieved some level of independence.

Underemployment has remained persistently high in the aftermath of the Great Recession with workers younger than 30 especially feeling the pinch, according to new research.