During the 1850s, land in U.S. farms increased by more than a third100 million acresand almost 50 million acres, an area almost equal to that of the states of Indiana and Ohio combined, were converted from their raw, natural state into productive farmland. The time and expense of transforming this land into a productive agricultural resource represented a significant fraction of domestic capital formation at the time and was an important contributor to American economic growth. Even more impressive, however, was the fact that almost half of these total net additions to cropland occurred in just seven Midwestern states which comprised somewhat less than one-eighth of the land area of the country at that time. Using a new GIS-based transportation database linked to county-level census data, we estimate that at least a quarter (and possibly two-thirds or more) of this increase in cultivable land can be linked directly to the coming of the railroad to the Midwest. Farmers responded to the shrinking transportation wedge which raised agricultural revenue productivity by rapidly expanding the area under cultivation and these changes, in turn, drove rising farm and land values.

One of the most dramatic economic transformations of the past century has been the entry of women into the labor force. While many theories explain why this change tookplace, we investigate the process of transition itself. We argue that local information transmission generates changes in participation that are geographically heterogeneous,locally correlated, and smooth in the aggregate, just like those observed in our data. In our model, women learn about the effects of maternal employment on children by observing nearby employed women. When few women participate in the labor force, data are scarce and participation rises slowly. As information accumulates in some regions, the effects of maternal employment become less uncertain and more women in that region participate. Learning accelerates, labor force participation rises faster, andregional participation rates diverge. Eventually, information diffuses throughout the economy, beliefs converge to the truth, participation flattens out, and regions become more similar again. To investigate the empirical relevance of our theory, we use a new county-level data set to compare our calibrated model to the time series and geographic patterns of participation.

This paper considers the decision of Gentiles whether or not to rescue Jews during the Holocaust, a situation of altruistic behavior under life-or-death stakes. I examine the role to which economic factors may have influenced the decision to be a rescuer. Using cross-country data, and detailed individual-level data on rescuers and non-rescuers, I find that (1) Richer countries had many more rescuers than poorer ones, and (2) Within countries, richer people were more likely to be rescuers than poorer people. The individual-level effect of income on being a rescuer remains significant after controlling for ease of rescue variables, such as the number of rooms in one's home, suggesting that the correlation of income and rescue is not solely driven by richer people having more resources for rescue. Given that richer people might be thought to have more to lose by rescuing, the evidence is consistent with the view that altruism increases in income.

Over the past half century, migration from Mexico and Central America to the United States has been driven by complementary regional demographic and human-capital trends, among many other factors. As the US labor force became better educated, fewer native workers accepted many of the low-wage but essential jobs at the bottom of the labor market. These changes in the United States coincided with a population boom in Mexico and Central America that resulted in a near tripling of the regions population. Economic growth was unable to keep pace with demographic change, however, and many of the regions youth sought opportunities in the United States. By 2009, immigrants from Mexico, ElSalvador, Guatemala, and Honduras accounted for nearly one-third (31.5 percent) of all US workers without a high school education, up from just 1.3 percent in 1970.Yet the demographic and human-capital profiles of Mexico and Central America are evolving rapidly, as are economic conditions in the United States. (For a summary, see Table 1.) In Mexico and El Salvador, the demographic transition initiated a half century ago is running its course, translating into slower population growth, declining numbers of youth, and aging societies. By contrast, population growth is expected to remain at relatively high levels in Guatemala and Honduras for several more decades. Thecountries of the region have made substantial progress in expanding access to education, with Mexican youth in particular converging with their US peers on key indicators such as years of schooling. Mexican students still lag behind US students on indicators of the quality of education, however; and access to education and test scores lag even further behind in Central America, suggesting the need for a focus on quality of education now that access to education has been so significantly expanded.At the same time, the recent US economic crisis has accelerated longstanding shifts in the US economyand labor market. Unemployment and underemployment are approaching record levels; and labor force participation is rising among the elderly, youth, and other groups that may compete with immigrants in the labor market, especially in industries such as hospitality and personal services. The retirement of the baby boom generation, which experts have predicted will lead to severe labor shortages, may be further in the future than was previously expected. It is not clear if these trends will last, or if US labor force and consumer behavior will revert to prerecession patterns once the economy starts growing again. Taken together, these changes mean that policymakers can no longer rely on theconventional wisdom about regional labor mobility that has guided their decisions in the past.

We analyze how sexual orientation is related to household financial decisions using 2000 US Census data, and find that lesbian couples pay higher annual mortgages relative to house value than do heterosexual or gay couples. We also estimate that cohabiting heterosexuals pay more than their married counterparts. We link this homosexual-specific differential to homeowners’ propensity to save. This differential reflects the gender composition of same-sex households, and their very low fertility, in addition to the precautionary motives increasing cohabiting couples’ propensity to save relative to married ones. Evidence from retirement and social security income of older couples exhibits the same pattern of differentials by sexual orientation and cohabiting status.

The analysis in the paper focuses on the Midwest in the 1850s. We restrict our attention to the Midwest for two reasons. First, it was in the Midwest where the bulk of the growth in the rail network occurred in the 1850s making the effects easier to identify; and second, because we have developed an econometric strategy that is compelling for the Midwest in this period (see below). Analysis of the data is complicated by the fact that many county boundaries were redrawn during the period while other counties did not even exist until the 1840s. To minimize these complications, we have restricted our analysis to 278 counties that were in existence by 1840 and which did not change their boundaries during the 1850s.

What do people do after they lose their jobs, other than look for a new one? The unemployed put more time into unpaid household work, including child care, according to an important new study by Mark Aguiar, Erik Hurst, and Loukas Karabarbounis. Their findings dramatize the limitations of conventional measures of economic well-being based entirely on market income.

A key step to promoting urban revitalization is the reclamation of abandoned or underutilized contaminated sites, also known as brownfields. Effective brownfield redevelopment approaches require environmental, socio-economic and urban planning dimensions to be integrated into policies. The most common approach to incorporate such dimensions is to evaluate specific redevelopment projects for a single site and decision support tools have been developed for that purpose. In this study, we present a decision support tool to prioritize brownfield redevelopment options based on their location characteristics as a basis for developing redevelopment priorities. This tool incorporates and aggregates location-specific variables into three indices: socioeconomic, smart growth and environmental. Its application to the city of New Haven, Connecticut as a case study demonstrates a general prioritization scheme that can be used by urban planners and public agencies to develop strategic plans for brownfield redevelopment, incorporating funding and local considerations.

Physician assistants (PAs) have become an integral part of the United States (U.S.) health care system since the profession began in the late 1960s. Physician assistants have been suggested as the solution to predicted physician shortages, especially in primary care. Utah has experienced unprecedented growth in the profession over the last 10 years. This study will determine the new patterns of physician assistant practice in the state of Utah. A cross sectional survey design was utilized. A paper-based survey tool was mailed to 700 physician assistants practicing in Utah. The survey was sent from October 2008 through January 2009. The outcome variables of interest were practice specialty (primary care versus specialty practice) and practice location (urban versus rural). The predictor or independent variables were age, gender, number of years in practice, location of upbringing, and professional school of graduation. The survey was developed by a group of PA stakeholders based on the literature and relevant clinical and academic experiences. There was a response rate of 67.7%. The Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL) provided the list of licensed PAs in the state, while population projections were used from the Utah Governor's Office of Planning and Budget (GOPB). Projection models for PAs in the state of Utah were developed using methods adapted from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Center for Workforce Studies. One model used data on the number of PAs currently in practice, the current utilization of PAs in primary care and specialty care, and future population estimates by age from the GOBP. The second model used data about the number presently in practice and the number that leave the profession through retirement, attrition or death. Practice patterns are shifting to specialty practice and urban environments in Utah. Physician assistants brought up in a rural area were more likely to practice in rural environments. Female PAs had lower odds of practicing in a rural area. Age and years of practice was not significantly associated with predictors of rural practice. Female PAs had lower odds of practicing in primary care versus their male counterparts. PAs had lower odds of practicing primary care if they reported a rural upbringing. Graduation from the Utah PA Program was more likely to result in primary care practice.

A central question of nineteenth century American economic history which has preoccupied scholars as diverse as Simon Kuznets, Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson is whether economic development was accompanied by increasing inequality. In this paper we study a particular indicator of economic inequality - the incidence of land ownership among adult men - and its relationship to a putative causal factor in nineteenth American growth - the so-called Transportation Revolution, focusing specifically on the diffusion of the railroad.

This paper quantitatively assesses wage dispersion and business cycle implications of the model presented by Tsuyuhara (201). In terms of frictional wage inequality,the results show that the model with on-the-job search with wage-tenure contracts seem to accommodate sizable frictional wage dispersion, but shows weak evidencethat the endogenous productivity diff erences due to work incentives are responsible for frictional wage dispersion. Moreover, the model predicts very small productivitydiff erences. In terms of business cycle implications, first, the mechanism of endogenous eff ort choice amplifi es the eff ect of productivity shock on unemployment rate.Second, the model illustrates a signifi cant diff erence between the eff ects of temporary productivity shock and that of permanent productivity shock due to the endogenousproductivity mechanism. Third, the model shows the importance of the distributional e ffect on macroeconomic variables during the transitory periods after a shock.

We exploit the introduction of sulfa drugs in 1937 to identify the impact of exposure to pneumonia in infancy on later life well-being and productivity in the United States. Using census data from 1980-2000, we find that cohorts born after the introduction of sulfa experienced increases in schooling, income, and the probability of employment, and reductions in disability rates. These improvements were larger for those born in states with higher pre-intervention pneumonia mortality rates, the areas that benefited most from the availability of sulfa drugs. Men and women show similar improvements on most indicators but the estimates for men are more persistently robust to the inclusion of birth state specific time trends. With the exception of cognitive disabilities for men and, in some specifications, work disability for men and family income, estimates for African Americans tend to be smaller and less precisely estimated than those for whites. Since African Americans exhibit larger absolute reductions in pneumonia mortality after the arrival of sulfa, we suggest that the absence of consistent discernible long run benefits may reflect barriers they encountered in translating improved endowments into gains in education and employment in the pre- Civil Rights Era.

As the chapters in this volume illustrate, the field of children as immigrants and refugees has progressed in terms of theoretical and methodological sophistication. Researchers are in a much better position today in terms of understanding the immigration process and the implications of the immigra- tion process for children and youth than even a decade ago. We are out of infancy and well into preschool in terms of our development as the field. This progress is evident in the myriad of advances noted in the preceding contributions. Our goals in this chapter are to highlight recent conceptual, methodological, and sampling advances as well to offer suggestions for future research and policy initiatives that could meaningfully guide the field of immigration.

This paper examines the wages of married and unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples to test the extent that division of labor and access to marital institutions impacts wage differentials. Because of the impact same-sex marriage laws may have on the mobility of homosexual couples, I also control for emigration. This paper also exploits a relatively recent trend in the examination of homosexual labor market outcomes, separate analysis of heads of households and spouses/partners. Combining Census and American Community Survey (ACS) data, this study examines a large pooled cross-sectional population of married and cohabitating couples over a longer time period than previous studies of homosexual wage differentials.

There has been concern about the impact of an aging workforce on occupational safety and health (National Academy of Sciences, 2004; Society for Occupational and Environmental Health, 2009). This interest is partially driven by the impact of the cohort of baby-boomers and inpart by concerns that injuries to older workers might increase disability costs for workers and workers compensation costs for employers. This study for the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers Compensation (CHSWC) examines how older workers injury frequency and costs differ from younger workers and how this will affect the workers compensation system.We first examine the common contention that injury risk declines with age as workers become more experienced. We find that after controlling for the types of jobs and the hours worked, injury risk through the age of 64 only declines for men, while the risk for women stays constant or increases gradually with age.

In this chapter we revisit the relationship between income and fertility. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that fertility is negatively related to income in most countries at most times. Several theories have been proposed in the literature to explain this somewhat puzzling fact. The most common one is based on the opportunity cost of time being higher for individuals with higher earnings. Alternatively, people might differ in their desire to procreate and accordingly some people invest more in children and less in market-specific human capital and thus have lower earnings. We revisit these and other possible explanations. We find that these theories are not as robust as is commonly believed. That is, several special assumptions are needed to generate the negative relationship. Not all assumptions are equally plausible. Such findings will be useful to distinguish alternative theories. We conclude that further research along these lines is needed.

This dissertation consists of three essays that look at the impact of local government policy on cities and land markets. The first essay examines the effect of differences in anti-crime policy on the spatial distribution of crime and the off-setting of the state policy by local governments. The second essay considers how differences in crime rates affect the sorting of businesses within an urban area. The third essay analyzes how housing vouchers affect the neighborhood quality of low-income households. The first essay considers two related questions: the impact of spatial variation in crime prevention policies on the migration of criminal activity into nearby locations and the tendency for higher-level government anti-crime policies to be offset by a scaling back of local crime deterrent efforts. The key source of variation used for identification is differences in the timing of adoption of state-wide Truth-in-Sentencing (TIS) legislation. To estimate the effect of the policy, I compare activity in adjacent counties on opposite sides of state boundaries in the 59 urban areas that cross state lines. There are three key results. First, adoption of TIS lowers the level of criminal activity in the adopting state. Second, adoption of the stiffer sentencing policy prompts migration of criminal activity into adjacent counties in the neighboring state. Finally, after imposition of TIS by the state government, local governments reduce the level of police protection. This suggests that some of the deterrent effect of the policy is offset by a scaling back on anti-crime efforts at the local level. The second essay estimates the impact of violent crime on the location of business activity in five U.S. cities. Central to the analysis is the idea that different sectors of the economy will sort into high- and low-crime areas depending on their relative sensitivity to crime. We illustrate this by comparing retail industries to their wholesale counterparts, and high-end restaurants to low-end eateries. Because retail industries are dependent on pedestrian shoppers, they are expected to be more sensitive to violent crime. Because high-end restaurants are dependent on evening business, they are expected to be more sensitive to violent crime over the prime dinner hours. We find that retailers are more likely to locate in safer locations compared to wholesalers in the same industry. Among restaurants, an increase in violent crime during the prime dinner hours decreases the high-end share of local restaurants. These findings indicate that entrepreneurs take violent crime into account when bidding for locations within a city. The third essay examines the effect of receiving a housing voucher on the residential mobility and neighborhood attributes of low-income households. Federal housing policy has shifted towards vouchers in lieu of public housing projects, in part, to allow households to move away from high poverty areas. Prior research, however, has found little evidence that households voluntarily move away from such locations. Drawing upon an exogenous shock to the supply of vouchers and an instrumental variables strategy, we use confidential administrative records and find that voucher recipients were located in neighborhoods with a 16% lower poverty rate as compared to non-recipients. In addition, we find voucher recipients were 33 percentage points more likely than non-recipients to move across census tract boundaries each quarter. These estimates are larger in magnitude than earlier studies that did not have a plausible instrumental variable to address the endogenous receipt of a housing subsidy.

The impressive growth of many cities including Raleigh, Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, Austin, and San Diego juxtaposed with places in decline such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, McAllen, and Fresno have prompted many to ask why some cities prosper while others struggle. Is a comeback possible for declining cities and if so, how? For a declining city to make a comeback, actions must be taken to improve the quality of life in the community, making it a nicer place to live and work. However, it is not simply a matter of issuing a press release declaring your community is great, but recognizing the real fundamentals necessary to support the firms and people deciding . . .

This report presents the results and expenditures for San Diego Gas & Electric Companys (SDG&Es) California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) program and Energy SavingsAssistance Program for program year (PY) 2010. The purpose of this report is to consolidate activity for the CARE program and Energy Savings Assistance Program, and provide the Energy Division with all the necessary information to assist in analyzing the low-income programs.