While theory suggests that public expenditures on education may affect intergenerational earnings mobility, the direction of the effect hinges on whether such outlays substitute for or complement private human capital investments. Analysis of U.S. census data, 19402000, shows that state-cohorts with low pupil-to-teacher ratios enjoy less intergenerational mobility: a two-standard-deviationreduction in the pupil-to-teacher ratio increases earnings persistence by 40 percent. These results are robust to controls for the average pupil-to-teacher ratio in the state in years the son was not in school, a result contrary to simple endogeneity stories.

It has been well documented that employment outcomes often differ considerably across areas.This paper examines the extent to which the local human capital level, measured as the share ofadults with a college degree, has positive external effects on labor force participation andemployment for U.S. metropolitan area residents. We find that the local human capital level haspositive externalities on participation for women, but an inconsistent effect on participation formen. However, the local human capital level reduces unemployment for both men and women.We also find that less educated workers generally receive the largest external benefits.

It is often asserted that a highly educated workforce is vital to improving the competitive position ofAmerican businesses, especially by boosting entrepreneurship. To examine this contention, we use populationCensus data and a new panel data of startup firms, to examine how the education and skill level ofthe local labor force are related to the creation and success of new businesses. This paper studies relationshipbetween education, entrepreneurship, and businesses outcomes, and considers simultaneously boththe education of the entrepreneur and of the workforce where the entrepreneurs operate their businesses.Consistent with this simultaneous focus, our initial results indicate that more educated entrepreneurstend to be located in metropolitan areas with more educated workforces. Moreover, highlyeducated areas have above average entrepreneurship rates. Finally, the level of education of entrepreneursis strongly related to positive business outcomes, especially for college graduates compared tothose with less than a four-year degree.

Central Minnesota has a long and strong history of beingan agricultural leader in the Upper Midwest Region.The proximity to agricultural producers in combinationwith a number of entrepreneurial business ownershas fostered a processed food cluster that is deeplydependent on the poultry, meat and dairy industries.

Implicit values of amenities and the quality of life in an area can be measured by differences inreal wages across areas, where real wages are computed as nominal wages adjusted for the costof living. Computing cost of living differences involves several important issues, most importantbeing how housing prices should be measured. Previous researchers typically have used somecombination of rental payments and homeowner housing values. This paper examinesdifferences in quality of life estimates for U.S. metropolitan areas using, alternatively, rents andhousing values. We find that the two measures of quality of life are highly correlated. Valuebasedestimates, however, are considerably more dispersed than rent-based estimates, likelybecause of the recent bubble in the housing market and because housing values often provide animperfect measure of the present user cost of housing. Researchers should be cautious in usinghousing values to construct quality of life estimates.

Using US Census data for 1990 and 2000, we estimate effects of the NAFTA agreementon the US wages. We look for any indication of effects of the agreement on (i)local labor markets dependent on industries vulnerable to import competition fromMexico, and (ii) workers employed in industries competing with Mexican imports. Wefind evidence of only modest local labor-market effects, but evidence for a strong industryeffect, dramatically lowering wage growth for blue-collar workers in the mostaffected industries. These distributional effects are much larger than aggregate welfareeffects estimated by other authors. In addition, we find strong evidence of anticipatoryadjustment in places whose protection was expected to fall but had not yet fallen;this adjustment appears to have conferred an anticipatory rent to workers in thoselocations.

American newspapers are dying at an alarming rate, killed off by a failing corporate model that puts profits before journalism and a reliance on advertisers who are flocking to the Internet. Respected journalists McChesney and Nichols offer historical perspectivehow we got into this sorry stateand analysis from journalists, economists, and advocates on how we might be able to get out of it. They cite statistics, chronicling efforts to move newsgathering to the Internet and the success of many bloggers who rely on aggregated news from old media. Their bottom line: without some kind of government support, journalism as we know it will not survive. Despite resistance to the idea of government support of media, they point to postal subsidies dating back to the 1700s. They also offer the model of government and philanthropic support of media in Britain (the BBC and the Guardian), as well as the much leaner history of government support for public broadcasting in the U.S. Among their suggestions: worker and community cooperative ownership of local media and quasi nonprofit news organizations. The authors argue passionately for radical solutions but also offer an exhilarating vision for the direction of American journalism.

摘要: 华夏文明源远流长, 家谱、正史与方志共同构成了中华文明史的三个重要成分, 其中, 家谱以家族中的个 人信息为基本记录单元 , 以人与人之间的关系为框架 , 形成了富有中国特色的对家族从空间分布到时间演化的完 整描述体系 , 家谱资料的蕴含信息和记录粒度是其他历史资料所不能比拟的。家谱 GIS扩展了现有家谱信息描述 的概念 , 通过强化其中蕴含的空间信息 , 以家族谱系为基础 , 在空间信息技术的支持下 , 重构个人的空间活动 , 重现一个家族的兴衰、繁衍与变迁, 实现从宏观到微观角度家族历史的全面地反映。本文分析了家谱与 GIS的关 系, 提出了家谱 GIS构建所必须的统一的历史地理时空描述框架; 在此基础上分析了家谱中信息的组织模式, 设

Although associations between status or resources and reproduction are positive in premodern societiesand also in men in modern societies, in modern women the associations are typically negative. We investigatedhow the association between socioeconomic status and reproductive output varies with the source of status and resources,the womans education, and her age at reproductive onset (proxied by age at marriage). By using a large sample ofUS women, we examined the association between a womans reproductive output and her own and her husbandsincome and education. Education, income, and age at marriage are negatively associated with a womans number ofchildren and increase her chances of childlessness. Among the most highly educated two-thirds of the sample of women,husbands income predicts the number of children. The association between a womans number of children and her husbandsincome turns from positive to negative when her education and age at marriage is low (even though her meanoffspring number rises at the same time). The association between a womans own income and her number of childrenis negative, regardless of education. Rather than maximizing the offspring number, these modern women seem to adjustinvestment in children based on their family size and resource availability. Striving for resources seems to be part of amodern female reproductive strategybut, owing to costs of resource acquisition, especially higher education, it maylead to lower birthrates: a possible evolutionary explanation of the demographic transition, and a complement to thehuman capital theory of net reproductive output. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 00:0000, 2010.

OBJECTIVE: To examine healthcare coverage and access disparities for American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) veterans compared with non-Hispanic white veterans. METHODS: We examined national survey data for honorably discharged veterans in the United States using National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data between 1997 and 2006. NHIS data were obtained from the Integrated Health Interview Series, a web-based data resource containing harmonized NHIS data from 1969 to the present. Our sample included AIAN and white veterans aged 18 to 64 years (n = 34,504). We used multivariate logistic regression models to estimate the odds of being uninsured, reasons for delayed care, and types of foregone care. RESULTS: In multivariate analysis, AIAN veterans have 1.9 times higher odds of being uninsured compared with non-Hispanic white veterans (95% CI: 1.6-2.7). Compared with white veterans, AIAN veterans are significantly more likely to delay care due to not getting timely appointments (OR = 2.0, 95% CI: 1.1-2.6), not getting through on the phone (OR = 3.0, 95% CI: 1.6-5.8), and transportation problems (OR = 2.9, 95% CI: 1.1-7.3). In unadjusted models, AIAN veterans have significantly higher odds of having foregone 4 of 5 types of care compared with non-Hispanic white veterans. Adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and insurance eliminated all significant relations. CONCLUSIONS: AIAN veterans have considerable disparities in healthcare coverage and access compared with non-Hispanic whites. Although barriers to care due to cost are nominal for AIAN veterans, barriers to care due to navigating the healthcare system and due to lack of transportation remain substantial.

Neglected, but significant, the long-run consequence of the minimum wage which was made national policy in the United States in 1938 is its stimulation of capital deepening. This took two forms. First, the engineered shortage of low-skill, low-paying jobs induced teenagers to invest in additional human capital primarily by extending their schooling in an attempt to raise their productivity to the level required to gain employment. Second, employers faced with an inability to legally hire low-wage workers, rearranged their production processes to substitute capital for low-skill labor and to innovate new technologies. This paper explores the impact of the minimum wage on enrollments between 1950 and 2003. I describe an upward ratcheting mechanism which triggers an educational cascade. My estimate is that the average number of years of high school enrollment would have risen to only 3.5 years, rather than 3.7 years, for men born in 1951. Thereafter, enrollment rates would have trended down to about 3.2 years for the cohort born in 1986, rather than slowly rising to around 3.9 years. The cumulative effect of the minimum wage increases beginning in 1950 was to add 0.7 years to the average high school experience of men born in 1986.

In 2007 the New England Public Policy Center released “The Lack of Affordable Housing in New England: How Big a Problem? Why Is It Growing? What Are We Doing About It?” Analyzing affordability measures from 1995 to 2005, Alicia Sasser, Bo Zhao, and Darcy Rollins Saas found that the lack of affordable, owner-occupied housing was a problem for both middle-income and low-income households in New England—particularly in southern New England states. The authors also found that households headed by young professionals could afford to purchase median-priced homes in the region, but not as easily as in the 1990s, and not as easily as in most rival metropolitan areas. New England’s rental housing, in contrast, was expensive relative to that in the rest of the nation, but incomes were high enough that rentals were still affordable to most New Englanders.

This paper investigates recent commuting trends in American workers. Unlike most studies of commuting that rely on Census data, this study utilizes the unique American Time Use Survey to detail the complex commuting patterns of modern-day workers. The data confirm what has been suspected, that incidence of driving alone has decreased substantially in recent years while carpooling has rebounded. The results from the multi-nominal logistic estimation of workers’ commuting choices yield support for both the traditional economic determinants as well as for the newer, socio-economic factors. In addition to the cost savings, many commuters appear to value the social aspect of carpooling. Surprisingly, there is little evidence that the need for autonomy plays much of a factor in explaining worker’s choice of the journey to work. The estimated short-run “elasticity” of carpooling with respect to real gas prices appears to be quite high and largely accounts for the significant decline in the incidence of “driving alone”.

This work analyses working hours, childcare support, wage inequality and windfall gains. In Chapter I, I test whether family-support policies play a role in explaining variation in working hours across countries. I analyse childcare subsidies and family cash benefits and I distinguish between people with children and people without children. Childcare subsidies should increase working hours in the economy and these effects should differ between parents and nonparents. I test this using household data for a set of European countries and the US. Empirical analysis, however, does not support the family-policy explanation. The effects of the policies on working hours are weak and insignificant. Furthermore, I do not find evidence for the expected differences between parents and nonparents. I conclude that family policies are not helpful in explaining the variation in working hours across countries. In Chapter II, I argue that rising inequality in offered wages lowers average working hours. If the labour supply is concave in wages, the aggregate effect of the decrease in working hours of lowpaid workers is greater than the increase in working hours of high-paid workers. Furthermore, due to low market opportunities, some of the low-paid workers may leave the labour force and become inactive. Using the CPS-MORG data for prime-age men I find evidence in support of this explanation. After controlling for the average wage, wage inequality has a negative effect on the labour supply. In Chapter III, I investigate whether workers adjust hours of work in response to windfall gains using data from the European Household Panel. The results suggest that unexpected variation in income has a small negative effect on working hours. Furthermore, the empirical findings show that the impact of windfall gains is more important for young and old individuals, is most negative for married individuals with young children, but can be positive for single individuals at the age of 40

In this paper we ask three questions: First, is there evidence of a Black-White gap in self-employment between 1994-2002 and could the inclusion of the White immigrant population be driving this result? Second, do within race differences in self-employment exist among the U.S. born? Finally, do cohort differences in the Black-White self-employment gap exist among the U.S. born? These questions are based on some of the regression findings in our earlier paper focused on the role of information and institutions in understanding the Black-White gap in self-employment. We find that the Black-White self-employment gap is not driven by the existence of White immigrants in the data set. In addition, we find that within race and cohort differences exist in the Black-White self-employment gap. A subgroup of U.S. born African-Americans have a self-employment probability that is identical to that of U.S. born White-Americans. In addition, younger cohorts of African-Americans have a much smaller self-employment gap than do older African-Americans.