Many U.S. city regions have experienced some form of urban "sprawl," or the uneven, outward spreading of urban development from city centers. For city regions lying in areas prone to severe weather, the sprawl phenomenon exposes greater numbers of developed areas to thunderstorm hazards of different intensities. One such region, the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) of Atlanta, GA, has experienced extensive sprawl development since 1960 and lies in an area prone to thunderstorms year-round. This study will use three approaches to examine how the Atlanta area's massive development has affected its overall risk to thunderstorm hazards, which include tornadoes, wind, and hail. First, spatial densities and temporal intervals of hazard events are examined for each MSA county to determine if some locations may be more prone to hazard exposure than others. Second, spatial densities are computed for population, housing, and median income values for all counties to locate areas of greatest potential loss. Last, archived census data are employed to assess overall impacts from hypothetical tornado, wind, and hail events occurring at

This dissertation is comprised of two essays in which we separately analyze what are the effects of childcare subsidies on employment outcomes of low income mothers, and how childcare subsidies take up affects the test scores of those children whose mothers take the subsidy to go to work. In the essays we analyze evidence of the effects of the childcare subsidy policy using survey and administrative data. We apply conventional estimators from the program evaluation econometrics literature and make some methodological contributions on how to identify parameters of the childcare subsidy effect on labor supply and cognitive development. The results evidence positive effects of the childcare subsidies policy on the labor supply of mothers and mixed effects on cognitive development of their children that are contingent on the type of childcare associated to the subsidy benefit. The two essays presented in this dissertation are a primary evidence of the effects of childcare subsidies in the post-welfare reform era. We provide some ideas on how to balance the inter generational policy dilemma implied in the answer to the question: should childcare subsidies emphasize employment promotion today or investments in building the set of skills that will characterize the labor force tomorrow?

Reverse mortgages and similar products generally feature negative amortization:no principal or interest payments are made to the lender until the borrower movesout of the home or dies, so the balance due grows with time. This paper shows thatwhen markets are otherwise complete, replacing negative amortization with interest-only payments and mandatory purchase of life annuities su$cient to pay interest onwithdrawals increases lender pro ts and borrower welfare. Rationalizing negative amor-tization requires special combinations of forms of market incompleteness, among whichmay be private information on mortality and exogenous price variation.1 I

This study analyzes the factors affecting the formation of racial identity, particularly focusing on Black-White Multiracial. By employing 2000 IPUMS dataset, I apply a logit-regression analysis of Black-White Multiracial on the explanatory variables of individual traits and socio-environmental characteristics. Socio-environmental characteristics turn out to be more important on the formation of multiracial identity than individual traits. When they have higher socioeconomic status, are younger and more mobile, live in the community of smaller ratio of Blacks, work in the workplace of smaller ratio of Blacks, and when their spouses are of different race, they are more likely to have the racial identity of Black-White Multiracial. Particularly, educational attainment serves as a very important factor in forming the racial identity of Black-white multiracial. The South displays much larger disparity between Blacks and Black-White Multiracials than do the other regions. Particularly when a Black has a spouse of a different race, the chance of being Black-White Multiracial is much larger in the South than in other regions. Parents have strong influence on the racial identity formation of their children. It is surprising that more than half (62.0%) of the children from the couples of Black and other race have the racial identity of Multiracial. In contrast, Just one in five (20.0%) children from those parents have the singular racial identity of Black. It implies that when the traditional racial order is once broken with respect to the ban of interracial marriage, another part of racial order that defines race by the singular concept of identification is more likely to be broken. Given the fact that inter-racial marriage has been steadily growing, the findings suggest that those having Multiracial identity will increase . . .

Although economic theory predicts an inverse relation between relative wages and immigration-induced supply shifts, it has been difficult to document such effects. The weak evidence may be partly due to sampling error in a commonly used measure of the supply shift, the immigrant share of the workforce. After controlling for permanent factors that determine wages in specific labor markets, little variation remains in the immigrant share. We find significant sampling error in this measure of supply shifts in Canadian and U.S. Census data. Correcting for the resulting attenuation bias can substantially increase existing estimates of the wage impact of immigration.

The sharp declines in fertility across Southern Europe between 1970 and 2000 are frequently attributed to the structure of the labor market and institutions, but I find evidence that non-market forces may also be quite relevant. In comparing the outcomes of immigrants by country-of-origin, the effect of Europe-specific institutions and government policies are netted out. Using total fertility rates in Europe as a quantitative indicator of child-bearing behavior, I find that the fertility decisions of second-generation immigrants to the United States are remarkably similar to those of Europeans from the country of ancestry, even after accounting for first-order factors like education and income. A decline of one child per woman in Europe during this period predicts a 0.3 fall in the observed number of children born to immigrants.In addition, immigrants with fathers from strongly Catholic nations demonstrate large declines, much like their European cousins, indicating a potential link between religion and preferences regarding family size. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which lead to large, unexpected theological and practical shifts among Catholics worldwide, provides useful variation in the religiosity of European Catholics, allowing me to differentiate the fertility behavior of Catholics from Protestants. Second-generation women from a 100% Catholic country whose own TFR declined by one child are predicted to have their own fertility fall by 0.9 children per woman between 1970 and 2000. In contrast, European TFR has no power in predicting the fertility of women from a wholly Protestant nation. Declining religiosity, as measured by lagged church attendance, appears to be one underlying cause of this pan-Atlantic fertility correlation, but it does not completely explain the connection between immigrant and European fertility.

This report examines the background and passage of automatic enrollment legislation in South Dakota and its initial impact on participation rates in the states defined contribution retirement plan.

Immigrants human capital and human capital potential is not fully transferrable into wage levelsin the host county. Albania is a recent case in point that offers an opportunity for study. Since thecollapse of the totalitarian regime in 1990, Albania has undergone drastic demographic changes,fueled by unprecedented levels of emigration and disproportionately large shares of those whoare leaving are highly skilled individuals. Albanias brain drain has received a large amount ofresearch attention over the years, but little is known about the possible brain gain for the hostcountry, or brain waste resulting from the over education of the immigrant labor force. Thispaper investigates the issue of human capital transferability by examining the labor marketexperience of this relatively new, little known immigrant group in the United States. Theexamination pays particular attention to three issues: (1) the success of Albanians relative toItalian immigrants; (2) the role of human capital; and (3) performance differences betweenemigrants leaving as refugees during the communist era, and those emigrating during the postcommunistera. The empirical analysis uses pooled data from the 2000 US Census 5% sample,and the 2001-2007 American Community Survey (ACS) 3% sample, accessed from theIntegrated Public Use Micro data Series (IPUMS-USA). Findings of this research suggest thathuman capital acquired at home has a positive impact on wages, but the level of skilltransferability is low for Albanians and human capital acquired in the US has a slightly largerpay-off for Albanian immigrants than for Italian immigrants. Both Italians and Albaniansexperience returns to assimilation at a decreasing rate. Albanian immigrants earn less than Italianimmigrants do, and the gender wage gap among Albanian immigrants is smaller than amongItalian immigrants.

In recent years, several projects have built large semantic knowledge bases, with the help of information extraction techniques. By applying these techniques to unstructured (or loosely structured) web sites like Wikipedia, the received knowledge bases may contain uncertainty or even inconsistency to some extend. To tackle the problem of this potential data uncertainty and inconsistency, the Max-Planck Institute Saarbrücken has developed URDF. URDF is an efficient reasoning framework for graph-based RDF knowledge bases. Thereby, URDF uses a SPARQL-like query model. Moreover, URDF augments first-order reasoning by a combination of soft and hard rules. In addition, URDF applies a novel approximation algorithm for a generalized version of the Weighted MAX-SAT problem to resolve inconsistencies between the underlying knowledge base and the inferencing rules at query time. The knowledge base currently used by URDF to answer user-given queries is YAGO. Thereby, URDF produces potentially complex lineage information during its reasoning process. These produced reasoning data, which are a valuable source of information for the user, pose some tough challenges for a suitable visualization. In this thesis, we present UViz (URDF Visualization), a complete visualization system, using URDF as reasoning backend. UViz is built in a client-server fashion. Thereby, UViFace (UViz Visualization InterFace), the visualization interface of UViz, uses Adobe Flex and Flash Player to run as a RIA (Rich Internet Application) inside a common web browser. Thereby, URDF runs on the server. Moreover, URDF applies the Flex-specific data service BlazeDS to guarantee fast data exchange between the visualization on the client and the URDF on the server. Finally, UViz integrates the Flare visualization toolkit to provide a dynamic and visually appealing graph visualization. This way, UViz is able to visualize the information produced by URDF in an intuitive and meaningful way. Thereby, UViFace supports three different operation modes to explore the visualization, examine the lineage information and compare query results with and without rule changes. Moreover, UViFace applies several state-of-the-art visualization techniques to support the user in working with the visualized data. Finally, UViFace provides a visualization that allows the user to accomplish URDF-related user interface tasks intuitively. This is demonstrated in this thesis

Racial disparity in prison and jail populations, measured by the ratio of black to white per capita incarceration rates, varies substantially from state to state. To understand these variations, researchers must examine disparity at earlier stages of the criminal process and also racial differences in socioeconomic status that help explain disparity in cases entering the system. Researchers must adjust disparity ratios to correct for limitations in available data and in studies of prior incarceration rates. Minnesota has one of the highest black/white incarceration ratios. Disparities at the earliest measurable stages of Minnesotas criminal processarrest and felony convictionare as great as the disparity in total custody (prison plus jail) populations. Disparities are substantially greater in prison sentences imposed and prison populations than at arrest and conviction. The primary reason is the heavy weight sentencing guidelines give to offenders prior conviction records. Highly disparate arrest rates appear to reflect unusually high rates of socioeconomic disparity between black and white residents.

Using data on user attributes and interactions from an online dating site, we estimate mate preferences, and use the Gale-Shapley algorithm to predict stable matches. The predicted matches are similar to the actual matches achieved by the dating site, and the actual matches are approximately efficient. Out-of-sample predictions of offline matches, i.e., marriages, exhibit assortative mating patterns similar to those observed in actual marriages. Thus, mate preferences, without resort to search frictions, can generate sorting in marriages. However, we underpredict some of the correlation patterns; search frictions may play a role in explaining the discrepancy.

We construct a new index of media slant that measures the similarity of a news outlet's language to that of a congressional Republican or Democrat. We estimate a model of newspaper demand that incorporates slant explicitly, estimate the slant that would be chosen if newspapers independently maximized their own profits, and compare these profit-maximizing points with firms' actual choices. We find that readers have an economically significant preference for like-minded news. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample. By contrast, the identity of a newspaper's owner explains far less of the variation in slant.

Numerous organizations collect and distribute non-aggregate personal data for a variety of different purposes, including demographic and public health research. In these situations, the data distributor is often faced with a quandary: on one hand, it is important to protect the anonymity and personal information of individuals. While one the other hand, it is also important to preserve the utility of the data for research. This thesis presents an extensive study of this problem. We focus primarily on notions of anonymity that are defined with respect to individual identity, or with respect to the value of a sensitive attribute. We discuss the anonymization techniques over relational data and large survey rating data. For relational data, we propose a variety of techniques that use generalization (also called recoding) and microaggregation to produce a sanitized view, while preserving the utility of the input data. Specifically, we provide a new structure called “Privacy Hash Table”; propose three enhanced privacy models to limit the privacy leakage; we inject the purpose and trust into the data anonymization process to increase the utility of the anonymized data, and we enhance the microaggregation method by using concepts from Information Theory. For survey rating data, we investigate two important problems (satisfaction and publication problems) in anonymizing survey rating data. By utilizing the characteristics of sparseness and high dimensionality, we develop a slicing technique for satisfaction problems. By using graphical representation, we provide a comprehensive analysis of graphical modification strategies. For all the techniques developed in this thesis, we include a set of extensive evaluations to indicate that the techniques are possible to distribute high-quality data that respect several meaningful notions of privacy

This dissertation consists of three essays on household saving behavior and fiscal policy. The first essay uses state-industry variation to identify precautionary saving behavior at the household level. Households in more volatile states save more, consistent with the theory. Precautionary motives are significant only for younger households. Volatile labor income makes households less likely to own homes, but more likely to participate in the stock market. The second essay uses variation in state budget rules to identify Keynesian fiscal policy multipliers. In a fiscal crisis, states with strict balanced-budget rules engage in larger fiscal recisions; this variation is plausibly exogenous and implies a multiplier of 1.6–1.8, which is significantly larger than multipliers estimated from aggregate time series. It costs roughly $25,000 to preserve or generate one job. The third essay studies the response of household portfolio behavior to capital gains taxation. The tax induces the well-known “lock-in” effect, inhibiting roughly one-fourth of portfolio rebalancing at the household level. The deadweight burden of the lock-in effect is estimated to be 10–25% of the revenue collected, comparable to the range of estimates for the deadweight burden of labor income taxes. More rational households are better at adjusting their behavior to minimize their welfare losses, while less rational households actually experience a net welfare gain from lock-in because it reduces their over-trading.

We construct an endogenous growth model that includes a cultural variable along the dimension of individualism-collectivism. The model predicts that more individualism leads to more innovation because of the social rewards associated with innovation in an individualist culture. This cultural effect may offset the negative effects of bad institutions on growth. Collectivism leads to efficiency gains relative to individualism, but these gains are static, unlike the dynamic effect of individualism on growth through innovation. Using genetic data as instruments for culture we provide strong evidence of a causal effect of individualism on income per worker and total factor productivity as well as on innovation. The baseline genetic markers we use are interpreted as proxies for cultural transmission but others have a direct effect on individualism and collectivism, in line with recent advances in biology and neuro-science. The effect of culture on long-run growth remains very robust even after controlling for the effect of institutions and other factors. We also provide evidence of a two-way causal effect between culture and institutions.