We review patterns in migration within the US over the past thirty years. Internal migration has fallen noticeably since the 1980s, reversing increases from earlier in the century. The decline in migration has been widespread across demographic and socioeconomic groups, as well as for moves of all distances. Although a convincing explanation for the secular decline in migration remains elusive and requires further research, we find only limited roles for the housing market contraction and the economic recession in reducing migration recently. Despite its downward trend, migration within the US remains higher than that within most other developed countries.

In this paper, we study the problem of data skewness. A data set is skewed/imbalanced if its dependent variable is asymmetrically distributed. Dealing with skewed data sets has been identified as one of the ten most challenging problems in data mining research. We address the problem of class skewness for su- pervised learning models which are based on optimiz- ing a regularized empirical risk function. These include both classification and regression models for discrete and continuous dependent variables. Classical empirical risk minimization is akin to minimizing the arithmetic mean of prediction errors, in which approach the in- duction process is biased towards the majority class for skewed data. To overcome this drawback, we propose a quadratic mean based learning framework (QMLearn) that is robust and insensitive to class skewness. We will note that minimizing the quadratic mean is a con- vex optimization problem and hence can be efficiently solved for large and high dimensional data. Comprehen- sive experiments demonstrate that the QMLearn model significantly outperforms existing statistical learners in- cluding logistic regression, support vector machines, lin- ear regression, support vector regression and quantile regression etc.

The living arrangements of young Americans offer a window not only on the transition to adult independence, but also on the incorporation of immigrants and minorities into U.S.society. Of particular interest is whether young people reside with parents or live apart. Focusing on the nations two largest immigrant gateways, pooled data from the 20052007 American Community Surveys show that there are significant racialethnic differences, which are even more marked when immigrant generation is taken into account. Further analysis confirms that residential arrangements are related to adult social roles and personal resources, and controlling for roles and resources eliminates the Black-White gap in parental co-residence. Several predictors, such as personal income and marital status, display distinctive patterns for the different racial and ethnic groups.

Costa and Kahn(2000) hypothesized that dual--degree couples migrate to large cities in order to solve their dual- employment problem. However, there is only limited empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis. This research presents an alternative explanation:The inter--metropolitan distribution of skilled couples is largely the result of marriages among skilled singles in large cities. The relative merits of both the colocation and marriage market hypotheses are evaluated by comparingthe effects of migration and marriage on the inter- metropolitan distribution of dual--degree couples using data from the 2008 American Community Survey. Migration is found to have little effect on the distribution of dual- degree couples. Rather, the concentration of dual--degree couples is strongly related to the high rate of marriages among single college graduates in large cities. This research highlights the need for research concerning the distribution of skilled workers to examine migration behavior more closely.

Costa and Kahn hypothesize that the growing concentration of skilled couples inlarge cities is due to their migration to large cities to solve their dual-employment problem.However, there is only limited empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis. This research testsan alternative hypothesis: The intermetropolitan distribution of skilled couples is largely the resultof marriages among skilled singles in large cities. The relative merits of both the co-location andmarriage market hypotheses are evaluated by comparing the effects of migration and marriageon the intermetropolitan distribution of dual-degree couples using data from the 2008 AmericanCommunity Survey. Migration is found to have little effect on the distribution of dual-degreecouples. Rather, the concentration of dual-degree couples is strongly related to the high rate ofmarriages among single college graduates in the same cities.grow_

This article makes program and policy recommendationsfor the design of effective pathways to teaching careersfor Puerto Ricans that combine college readiness withworkforce development in sectors where there areopportunities for entry-level employment with minimalcredentials and opportunity for advancement at a salaryabove the minimum wage. The pathways target vulnerablemembers of the Puerto Rican community, such as youngmales, ages 16 to 24, who are in high school, unemployed,or employed in low-wage industries.

A body of recent empirical work has found strong evidence that the labor elasticity of supply to the firm is finite, implying that firms may have wage setting power. However, these studies capture only snapshots of the parameter. We study this parameter over a period that provides substantial variation in the business cycle. Using a rich employee level dataset from the inter-war period, we are able to estimate the elasticity of supply to the firm during several recessions and expansions. Our analysis suggests that the elasticity is indeed lower during recessions, consistent with the comparative statics from the Burdett-Mortensen search model. This differential wage setting power over the business cycle provides an alternative explanation of the pro-cyclicality of wages.

We use data from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, and the 2000 U.S. decennial census to analyze how occupational risk relates to the earnings of Hispanic immigrant men. Our findings indicate that those with limited English-language fluency received significantly higher compensating wages in unsafe jobs than their English-fluent counterparts. The larger occupational-risk premiums accrued by limited-English-proficient (LEP) foreign-born Hispanic men also hold when further including U.S.-born Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White men in the sample. These findings are consistent with underlying differences in preferences toward wages versus safety between LEP and English-proficient workers and/or differences in coverage under formal workers' compensation programs, perhaps because undocumented workers (many of whom already faced hazardous conditions when migrating illegally to work in the United States) comprise a disproportionate share of the LEP. However, our data and methodologies do not allow us to determine whether these premiums adequately compensate the LEP for the occupational risk they undertake.

In recent decades, some cities have seen their urban centers lose population density, as residents spread farther out to suburbs and exurbs. Others have kept populous downtowns even as their environs have grown. Population density in general has economic advantages, so one might wonder whether a loss of density, which may be a symptom of negative economic shocks, could amplify those shocks. We look at four decades of census data and show that growing cities have maintained dense urban centers, while shrinking cities have not. There are reasons to think that loss of population density at the core of the city could be particularly damaging to productivity. If this is the case, there could be productivity gains from policies aimed at reversing that trend.

The tally of injuries and property losses to extreme weather and flooding seems to be only growing in recent years. Global circulation changes and regional climate changes coupled with land use and land cover changes are creating more potentially hazardous spaces and places. The U.S. federal government sets guidelines for preparing for disasters and provides the bulk of disaster relief and recovery funding. In this country, however, the authority for instituting specific adaptation and hazard mitigation strategies lies with local governments. Local governments are responsible for guiding land-use decisions, for zoning and building codes, and for enforcing other strategies mandated by the federal government, such as the purchasing of flood insurance for homes with federal government-backed mortgages. Much of the research involves how and to what extent hazards policies can be best introduced and applied at local levels given competing economic, infrastructural, and social priorities. What has not been clearly established in the hazards research literature is a connection between established hazard mitigation objectives and urban policy-making in the years following a major disaster. The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma is a test case for deepening our understanding of the relationship between the two. This study uses an expanded version of the urban regime framework to ground data collection and analysis in the framework's three main focus areas: agenda, capacity, and relationships. The framework is expanded to include the environmental and natural resource dimensions of agenda setting, and pays special attention to spatial and locational dimensions of flood control. Planning documents, financial records and print media data sources are coded and analyzed for themes and patterns. Findings suggest that successful implementation of hazard mitigation goals and principles in Tulsa led to new questions about `balanced growth' development, land-use planning, and resource use that have implications for hazard mitigation sustainability. This study finds that some insights offered by the urban regime theory are helpful to this particular question and possibly other questions in the hazards/disaster research agenda.

This paper proposes and tests a structural model reflecting the process of authorizing private-activity municipal bond issuance. Private-activity municipal bonds offer tax-exempt financing for programs including industrial development, utilities, low-income housing, and student loans. The Federal tax code sets annual caps on the total tax-exempt issuance within each state, so authorization becomes a scarce resource distributed via a political process. Interviews with program administrators in several states suggested the authorization process involves prioritizingcategories of use, authorizing bonds for high-priority uses first, and then authorizing bonds for lower-priority uses until the cap is exhausted. A model representing this process suggests variables to include in reduced-form estimations and an alternative interpretation of the coefficients. The fit of the model can be improved by adding measures of political influence and imposing a structure thatreflects the political prioritization process. In general, industrial development and utilities appear to be the highest priority uses of private-activity municipal bonds.Mortgage revenue bonds are the residual category most frequently.

Economic factors such as wages may have different influences on meal production and consumption times. Previous research has typically investigated only production or consumption time, and has produced mixed results. After developing a stylized model that illustrates how higher wages may reduce meal production time but have ambiguous effects on meal consumption time, I examine these relationships using time diary information from the ATUS supplemented with wage information from the CPS. Using standard and censored regression models, I find that for meal production time, women experience a negative effect from wages on weekdays, as expected, and no effect on weekends. However, men show no weekday effect and a surprising positive effect of wages on weekends, suggesting that men with a high value of weekday time may substitute weekend meal production time for weekday time. Higher wages are associated with more meal consumption time for both men and women on weekdays and weekends, indicating that consumption time is a normal good.

Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Arab Americans faced increased discrimination that permeated almost every aspect of their lives. Previous research has documented the negative attention toward Arab Americans after 9 11 and the effect it has had on this community. However, less research has focused on discrimination against Arab Americans during the process of obtainingemployment in the United States. To address this gap in the current literature, we conducted a correspondence study in which we randomly assigned a typical white-sounding name or a typical Arab-sounding name to two similar fictitious resumes. We sent resumes to 265 jobs over a 15-monthperiod. We found that an Arab male applicant needed to send two resumes to every one resume sent by a white male applicant to receive a callback for an interview by the hiring personnel. Our findings suggest that the difference in callbacks may be the result of discrimination against the perceived race ethnicity of the applicant by the hiring personnel.