This thesis is a community study of Kansas City in the 1920s as a city working to assume a prominent place within the emerging American market empire. It begins by exploring the role that men and women played in altering the worldview of the city, followed by an analysis of the way in which the topography of the city was altered to reflect the forces of empire. Methodologically it utilizes critical theory.

The United States is undergoing a critical demographic transition: The population is aging. By 2040, the proportion of people over the age of 65 will top 20 percent, and people under the age of 18 will make up almost 23 percent of the population. As a result, the oldest and the youngest populations combined will make up almost half of all U.S. residents. This trend is also a global one, directly affecting planning practice worldwide (WHO 2007). As planners work to plan and design sustainable and livable communities they will need to simultaneously consider the needs of these similar, yet different, populations in future plans, policies, and projects.

We present the results of a 10-day field experiment in which over 500 elite software developers prepared solutions to the same computational algorithmic problem. Participants were divided into two groups with identical skills distributions and exposed to the same competitive institutional setting. The sorted group was composed of individuals who preferred the competitive regime instead of a team-based outside option. The unsorted group had population-average preferences for working in the regime or the outside option. We find this sorting on this basis of institutional preferences doubled effort and the performance of solutionscontrolling for skills, monetary incentives and institutional details.

This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the college enrollment of natives. Existing studies have primarily focused on the eff ect of increased immigrant demand for schooling on native enrollment. However, changes in immigrant labor supply may also aff ect native enrollment if they alter the net benefi t of higher education by changing local market prices. Using decadal U.S. Census microdata from 1970 to 2000, I fi nd that state-level increases in immigrant college students do not significantly lower the rate of native college enrollment in those states. In contrast, state-level increases in relatively unskilled immigrant labor do signifi cantly raise the proportion of natives in those states going to college. The identifi cation of a crowd-in eff ect and the lack of a signifi cant crowd-out eff ect are suggestive of college demand that is fairly wage-sensitive and college slots that are flexibly supplied over a decadal time horizon. Consistent with this, the crowd-in eff ect of immigrant labor inflows is larger for young natives, who may be moresensitive to college returns than older natives, as well as for natives on the margin of public school attendance, where college supply is likely more elastic.

Federal taxes penalize individuals for living in high-wage areas, while tax-benefits to owner occupied housing subsidize them for living in high-cost areas and subsidize the consumption of housing. As a result, productive areas are under-populated and housing is consumed at inefficiently high levels. Simulation results show the existing system of income taxation with tax-benefits for owner occupied housing causes $38 billion in deadweight loss from housing over consumption, and an additional $12 billion in deadweight loss from locational choice decisions. We show that eliminating mortgage interest and property tax deductions would reduce inefficiency in housing consumption and increase it in locational choice, with the net effect being a reduction in deadweight loss. We also show that a reform indexing income taxation to local wage levels while eliminating preferential tax treatment for owner occupied housing would lead to the largest reduction in deadweight loss of all reforms we consider.

The large and significant relationship between city population and wages has been well established in the agglomeration literature, yet its causal interpretation remains debated. This paper contributes new evidence to this debate by using multiple data sets of siblings in order to estimate the agglomeration premium while controlling for unobserved individual heterogeneity with a family-specific fixed effect. In the absence of this fixed effect, the agglomeration premium is large and significant. But after a familial fixed effect is included in the regression framework, the city-size wage premium becomes small in magnitude and statistically insignificant in all of the data sets used in the analysis. The results demonstrate the importance of family background for interpreting the agglomeration premium.

The literature on the relationship between city size and urban wages argues that productivity and wages are higher in larger cities. Indeed, a doubling of city size is associated with a 48 per cent increase in wages. The human capital externalities literature finds evidence of higher wages in cities with an abundant supply of human capital where knowledge spillovers are plentiful. Interestingly, cities with a large supply of human capital are not themselves large. They have a population of fewer than 1.5 million inhabitants. In view of this evidence, this paper questions whether city size has lost its importance as a determinant of high wages. In other words, is city size necessary to explain wage variations, after controlling for knowledge spillovers? Using a large sample from the 5 per cent PUMS of the 2000 US Census, this paper presents econometric evidence for city size and learning spillover effects on productivity. According to the estimates presented, every additional 100 000 inhabitants in the local labour market raises individual hourly wages by 0.12 per cent. Moreover, a doubling of the human capital density in a metropolitan area results in approximately a 2 per cent increase in average individual hourly wages

We use data from the 2007 American Community Survey to investigate differences in co-resident grandparent family structure between the native born and the foreign born in the United States (N=40,652). Whereas nuclear families are the norm in Europe and thus in European-origin families in the U.S., other cultures stress the importance of the extended family, familism, and/or filial piety. Given socioeconomic and cultural differences in immigrant families, we hypothesize that 1) co-residential grandparent families will be more common among immigrants and among native-born racial and/ethnic minority groups; 2) immigrant grandparent co-resident families will be more likely to be maintained by parents (sandwich generation); 3) sandwich generation families will be more prevalent among immigrants of Asian origin than among other immigrants, and; 4) these differences will exist net of length of time in the U.S., citizenship status, English language proficiency, SES, and other factors. Our results confirm each of these hypotheses.

In this paper I develop a consistent estimator of the population average treatment effect (PATE) which is based on a nonstandard version of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. What follows, I extend the recent literature which has utilized the treatment effects framework to reinterpret this technique, and propose an alternative solution to the reference group choice problem that is inherent therein. Moreover, I use the new estimator ofthis paper and its semiparametric extension to decompose gender wage differentials with the Current Population Survey (CPS) data, while providing separate estimates of the average gender effect on men, women, and the whole population.

The Appalachian region has experienced persistently higher poverty and lower earnings than the rest of the United States. We examine whether skill differentials or differences in the returns to those skills lie at the root of the Appalachian wage gap. Using census data, we decompose the Appalachian wage gap using both mean and full distribution methods. Our findings suggest that significantupgrading of skills within the region has prevented the gapfrom widening over the last 20 years. Additionally we find that urban areas within Appalachia have not experienced the rise in returns to skills as in non-Appalachian urban areas.

Objective: To assess the influence of community-level socioeconomic status (SES) and urban composition on well-being after spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation. Design: Retrospective analysis of cross-sectional survey data. Setting: Two participating centers in the SCI Model Systems (SCIMS) program. Participants: Persons (N=1454) with traumatic SCI from New Jersey and Alabama enrolled in the SCIMS database in 2000 to 2009. Intervention: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Dichotomous measures of perceived health (ill vs good health), life satisfaction (dissatisfied vs satisfied), and depressive symptoms (presence of a syndrome vs not) to assess well-being. Results: Multilevel logistic regression was used to model community effects on each indicator of well-being. The likelihood of ill health and dissatisfaction with life in people with SCI, but not depressive symptoms, varied across communities. Community SES was related inversely to the odds of reporting ill health. However, the odds for dissatisfaction were higher in persons with SCI living in high SES and urban communities. Associations between community predictors and dissatisfaction with life were sustained after controlling for individual differences in injury severity, SES, and demographics, whereas individual SES was a stronger predictor of ill health than community SES. Conclusion: This research suggests that community stratification influences the likelihood for diminished well-being for persons with SCI after rehabilitation. Understanding the contribution of communities in long-term outcomes after SCI rehabilitation is needed to inform future interventions aimed at preventing disability in this population.

The Great Recession of the past few years follows a complete economic cycle (2000-07) during which employment outcomes improved just barely for most Americans, while actually dete- riorating for some. Hourly wages rose modestly but employ- ment rates fell from their peaks in 2000, leading to overall earnings stagnation. Highly educated workers, those with the very highest earnings levels and women gained relatively more than others; less educated, male and/or younger workers fell behind, especially in the Midwest. During the Great Recession unemployment rates have risen most for younger, less- educated, and minority workers, especially men. Unemploy- ment durations are very lengthy while labor market recovery is likely to be gradual. Policy responses should help unemployed workers during the short term, while raising worker skills and job quality in the longer term, and providing additional sup- ports for those who will be forced to take low-wage jobs.

Data from many different sources were combined to produce the Dutch Census tables of 2001. Since the last Census based on a complete enumeration was held in 1971, the willingness of the population to participate has fallen sharply. Statistics Netherlands found an alternative in the Virtual Census, using available registers and surveys. The table results are not only comparable with earlier Dutch Censuses but also with those of other countries. The acquired experience in dealing with data of various administrative registers for statistical use enabled Statistics Netherlands to develop a Social Statistical Database (SSD), which contains coherent and detailed demographic and socio-economic statistical information on persons and households. The Population Register forms the backbone of the SSD. Sample surveys are still needed for information that is not available from registers. For the 2011 Census more detailed information is required than for the 2001 Census. Therefore, many data integration activities take place between the Censuses of 2001 and 2011. This paper gives a sketch of all these activities that will help to make the 2011 Census a success.

This paper presents new evidence that increases in college enrollment lead to a decline in the average quality of college graduates between 1960 and 2000, resulting in a decrease of 6 percentage points in the college premium. A standard demand and supply framework can qualitatively account for the trend in the college and age premia over this period, but substantial quantitative adjustments areneeded to account for changes in quality.

Research on child custody primarily focuses on the well-being of children following divorce. We extend this literature by examining how the prospect of joint child custody affects within-marriage investment in children through changes in household bargaining power. Variation in the timing of joint-custody reforms across states provides a natural-experiment framework with which to examine within-marriage investment in children. The probability of children's private school attendance declines by 12% in states that adopt joint-custody laws. We also find evidence linking joint-custody reform to higher rates of labor force participation for married mothers, which may indicate less time devoted household production.

The goal of my research is to explore ways to improve the welfare of populations that are targeted by public programs. In particular, my thesis consists of three chapters on health insurance and education. The first chapter looks at Medicaid take-up decisions among poor children. Medicaid is public health insurance that is available to low income individuals, and it is provided freely by the government. However, there is a puzzling observation that many low-income children are uninsured despite their eligibility for Medicaid. As one possible explanation, I propose that the low level of access to health care that Medicaid provides can explain incomplete take-up. Existing literature suggests that the low level of Medicaid fee payments to physicians reduces their willingness to see Medicaid patients, creating an access-to-care problem for these patients. Using variation in the timing of the changes in Medicaid payments across states, I find that improving Medicaid generosity increases the take-up rate and reduces the uninsured rate among poor children. These findings provide a partial explanation for why Medicaid-eligible children in poverty remain uninsured. While my first chapter focuses on traditional means-tested public health insurance which targets mainly low income families, the second chapter explores the issues with a more recent intervention that extends beyond low income families. In recent years, several states have allowed young adults as old as 30 to remain covered under their parents‘ employer-provided health insurance. For those who qualify for these benefits, the expansion of parental coverage partially reduces the value of being employed by a firm that provides health insurance since adult children can now get health insurance through another channel. We employ quasi-experimental variation in the timing and generosity of states‘ eligibility rules to identify the effect of the policy change on young adults‘ labor market choices. Our results suggest that the expansion of parental coverage increases the group coverage rate and reduces labor supply among young adults, particularly in full-time employment. The third chapter analyzes the effect of educational tracking by decomposing it into the separate roles of peer effects and coursework. The practice of tracking often results not only in grouping students by different ability, but also in providing different types of coursework for students. For instance, the advanced track may have both higher achieving peers and higher level coursework. Using detailed panel data from the San Diego Unified School district, I find that having high achieving peer is beneficial, while I do not find convincing evidence that taking more advanced math coursework predicts student‘s test score.

Розглянуто питання безпечного доступу до мікроданих в офіційній статистиці. Проаналізовано від- повідні нормативно-правові документи, прийняті на міжнародному та європейському рівнях, що регу- люють безпечний доступ до мікроданих і їх використання, а також зарубіжний досвід щодо організації такого доступу.

Many governmental jurisdictions are seeking to boost their economies through programs to develop or attract technology-based industries. Evaluating such programs is difficult because of the diversity of programs, the time lags between investments and outcomes, the lack of data on emerging industries, and because the effects may be difficult to detect among broader economic changes. The State of Ohio has made substantial investments in technology-based economic development, spanning R&D, support for entrepreneurship, expansion of risk capital, and programs focused on the development of specific emerging industries. We present the methods and results of our evaluation of this set of programs, using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods to test hypotheses about the impact of the programs. We found that the evidence suggests the programs have had a positive economic impact, improved support of entrepreneurship and the availability of risk capital, improved university-industry collaboration, and helped to expand new industrial clusters.

For those who monitor relative wealth accumulation and are unmoved by divine empathy, a disincentive to increase the rate of full manumission is possible. Consider slavery as overt, formal constraints to zero or even negative wealth accumulation; and consider freedom of ex-slaves as the perception of overt lack of formal wealth constraints and yet the possibility of covert, hidden or informal constrained wealth accumulation controls (i.e. southern Jim Crow laws); and finally, consider full manumission as the uninhibited opportunity to accumulate wealth at rates of entities without a history of slavery or with a more limited history of slavery. This definition of full manumission probably includes the necessity of wealth transfers to the fully manumitted ex-slave in transition from slavery or free ex-slave to full manumission. Nevertheless, this negatively bounded correlation between duration of time from the end of enslavement and magnitude of unexplained differences in wealth suggests the magnitude in the unexplained portion of white-black wealth differences increases as the length of time from the real end of enslavement decreases. This posses another research question: what is the level and source of wealth accumulation differences among blacks with a long history of freedom/manumission and blacks with a short history of freedom/manumission. This investigation probably starts with the re-examination of the historical documentation of the former existence of free black, mulatto slave owners of black slaves. However, Jesus Saves!

Ever since the 1880s and the development of rail connections between northern Mexico and the U.S. interior, Mexican migrants have been coming to the United States in notable numbers (Cardoso 1980; Spener 2009). Those lacking official permission to enter are often today called “unauthorized” migrants (Bean and Lowell 2007), although most arriving before World War I (and even long afterward) would scarcely have entertained the idea they were “unauthorized” (Massey, Durand and Malone 2002). Indeed, there was no official government agency charged with the responsibility of interdicting illegal border crossers until 1924, when the Border Patrol was established (Zolberg 2006). But most Mexican migrants, then and now, move because they need jobs and U.S. employers need their labor. Consistent with this, the United States for more than two decades permitted Mexican contract laborers to enter the country legally through the Bracero program. When that program ended in 1964, the number of unauthorized migrants began to escalate (Calavita 2010). The difficulties such migrants face have always been considerable (Chavez 1998; Gonzalez 2006). And after the penalties for unauthorized entry began to increase in 1996 (National Research Council 2011), their hardships became even more severe. Yet the country continues to rely as much as ever on unauthorized less-skilled Mexican workers (Bean, Brown and Bachmeier 2012). This contradiction highlights the growing relevance for public policy of assessments of how unauthorized migration affects the incorporation of Mexican-Americans.