Women's educational attainment has increased rapidly over the last 40 years, nearly equaling that of men by 2000. During the same time frame, many states passed unilateral and no-fault divorce laws. The first paper examines the potential link between the increase in women's educational attainment and the liberalization of divorce laws. A generalized Nash bargaining framework is used with modifications from Binmore et al. (1986) to assess how divorce laws can affect the educational choice of married individuals. I find unilateral divorce laws can in certain cases decrease educational attainment for women, suggesting that the liberalization of divorce laws is unlikely to be an explanation for the increase in women's educational attainment.

In search and bargaining models, the effect of higher wages on employment isdetermined by the elasticity of the job creation curve. In this paper, we use U.S.data over the 1970-2007 period to explore whether labor market outcomes abideby the restrictions implied by such models and to evaluate the elasticity of the jobcreation curve. The main difference between a job creation curve and a standarddemand curve is that the former represents a relationship between wages andemployment rates, while the latter represents a relationship between wages andemployment levels. Although this distinction is quite simple, it has substantiveimplications for the identification of the effect of higher wages on employment.The main finding of the paper is that U.S. labor market outcomes observed at thecity-industry level appear to conform well to the restrictions implied by search andbargaining theory and, using 10-year differences, we estimate the elasticity of thejob creation curve with respect to wages to be -0.3.

In standard economic theory, labor supply decisions depend on the complete set of prices: wages and the prices of relevant consumption goods. Nonetheless, most theoretical and empirical work in labor supply studies ignore prices other than wages. We address the question of whether the common practice of ignoring local price variation in labor supply studies is as innocuous as generally assumed. We describe a simple model to demonstrate that the effects of wage and nonlabor income on labor supply typically differ by location. In particular, we show that the derivative of the labor supply with respect to nonlabor income is independent of price only when the labor supply takes a form based on an implausible separability condition. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the effect of price on labor supply is not a simple "up-or-down shift" that would be required to meet the separability condition in our key proposition.

This report provides a first-of-its-kind descriptive summary of private school expenditures. It includes comparisons of expenditures among different types and affiliations of private schools, and it also compares those expenditures with publicschool expenditures for districts in the same state and labor market. Results indicate that (1) the less-regulated private school sector is more varied in many key features (teacher attributes, pay and school expenditures) than the morehighly regulated public schooling sector; (2) these private school variations align and are largely explained by affiliationprimarily religious affiliationalone;and (3) a ranking of school sectors by average spending correlates well with a ranking of those sectors by average standardized test scores. Public schools spend, in dollars adjusted for both region and inflation, more thanChristian Association Schools (CAS) and Catholic schools, but less than Hebrew or independent day schools: nearly $15,000 per pupil for independent schools, over $12,000 for Hebrew schools, $7,743 for Catholic schools, and approximately$5,727 for CAS. For public schools, the comparable average spending figure was $8,402. These spending variations were associated with not just test scores; they also reflected differences in salaries, pupil-to-teacher ratios and teacher undergraduate preparation. The variations also have clear implications for voucher programs, since current voucher policies are funded at amounts that cover costs at only aselect subset of private schools. They essentially push students into Christian Association and Catholic schools, pricing out independent (non-religious) schools and Hebrew schools. The report is based largely on annual IRS filings as reported in Guidestara national database and information service on non-profit organizations. Schools included in the analysis serve nearly 33% of all children attending ChristianAssociation Schools in the 24 states studied, and 75% of children attending independent day schools in those states. Total per-pupil spending was compared with total per-pupil spending for public school districts in the same labor marketand same city, with an adjustment for regional variation in wages. The analyses focused on approximately 1,500 private schools, examining IRS tax returns as well as data from the 2003-04 National Center for Education Statisticshttp://epicpolicy.org/publication/private-schooling-us Page 2 of 51 School and Staffing Survey, which allowed for analyses of private schools salary structure, teacher attributes, class sizes and tuition rates by affiliation and region. Specific factors include teacher age, teacher undergraduate institution competitiveness, teacher salary, pupil to teacher ratio, tuition rates, location and institutional affiliation.

We provide evidence that the robust association between cognitive skills and economicgrowth reflects a causal effect of cognitive skills and supports the economic benefits ofeffective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking studentachievement across countries, over time, and along the within-country distribution. Extensivesensitivity analyses of cross-country growth regressions generate remarkably stable resultsacross specifications, time periods, and country samples. In addressing causality, we find,first, significant growth effects of cognitive skills when instrumented by institutional featuresof school systems. Second, home-country cognitive-skill levels strongly affect the earnings ofimmigrants on the U.S. labor market in a difference-in-differences model that compareshome-educated to U.S.-educated immigrants from the same country of origin. Third, countriesthat improved their cognitive skills over time experienced relative increases in their growthpaths. From a policy perspective, the shares of basic literates and high performers haveindependent significant effects on growth that are complementary to each other, and the high performereffect is larger in poorer countries.

Internal migration--the redistribution of a country's people--is the spatial response of a population to demographic, economic, and social change. Sometimes change is so swift and intense in all these areas that it reshapes the national landscape. World War II was one of these galvanizing periods. During this major restructuring of the U.S. economy, black migration reached a historic high, white migration increased substantially following a half-century of decline, and second generation immigrants moved beyond the industrial core. By examining differences in these migration patterns, this study adds to our understanding of the social dynamics of the post-war period and fills the gap between two bodies of scholarly literature that could--but have not yet--been in conversation.One body of research locates origins of contemporary economic behavior and social inclusion in the World War II era. Some authors focus on the G.I. Bill and civic inclusion, others on the post-war clash of racial and ethnic groups in specific communities. This research largely ignores migration, analyzing populations where they are found after the war. Similarly, despite renewed scholarly interest in the migration of racial and ethnic groups in the United States, virtually no attention has been paid to the post-World War II period or to veteran status as a selective factor.To draw these scholarly threads together, I traced the evolution of veteran status as a predictor of internal migration prior to World War II. I then explored the influence of veteran status on post-war migration of three populations: whites with native-born parents, whites with foreign-born parents, and blacks. Using census microdata from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), I tracked migration levels and destinations to evaluate the extent to which each group was incorporated into the post-war economic and social order. Higher rates of internal migration were found for veterans but veteran status did not trump existing social hierarchies. Veteran gain to migration varied relative to the group's place in the pre-war social order. Thus social distance between whites with native-born and foreign-born parents was reduced in the post-war years, while that between whites and blacks increased.References

Background/Context: By the year 2030, when the baby boom generation born between 1946 and 1964 will be in the retirement ages, 72% of the elderly will be non-Hispanic Whites, compared with 56% for working-age adults, and 50% for children. As the predominantly White baby boomers reach retirement, they will increasingly depend for economic support on the productive activities and civic participation of working-age adults who are members of racial and ethnic minorities and, in many cases, children of immigrants. To prepare these young people for lives as productive workers and engaged citizens, we need to pay more attention to creating conditions that will foster their educational success. The profound shift taking place in the composition of the school-age population has implications for schools.Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study: This article presents a demographic overview of school-age children in immigrant families and compares them with their peers in native-born families. After tracing the shift in the national origins of children of immigrants that has taken place over the past century, we consider the new challenges and opportunities presented to the education system by the socioeconomic, cultural, and religious diversity of this new and growing population of students and by their presence in a growing number of suburban and rural, as well as urban, communities.Population/Participants/Subjects: This research uses data from Census 2000 to study children in immigrant families who have at least one foreign-born parent compared with children in native-born families who were born in the United States to U.S.-born parents.Research Design: This research is a secondary analysis of data from Census 2000.Conclusions/Recommendations: Immigration is transforming the demography of America. In less than three decades, a majority of children are likely to belong to race-ethnic minorities who are Hispanic, Black, Asian, or another non-White race, mainly because of immigration and births to immigrants and their descendants. The educational success achieved by immigrant groups, and their subsequent economic productivity, is important not only to the groups themselves but also to the broad American population because these groups will compose an increasingly important segment of the U.S. labor force during the next few decades; this labor force will be supporting the predominantly White baby boom generation throughout their retirement years. As we increasingly become a nation of minorities, with no single race-ethnic group in the majority, the educational success of all children, especially the rapidly growing population of children in immigrant families, merits increasing attention from teachers, school administrators, and public officials.

Black children born in the U.S. South in 1910 attended inferior schools and received threefewer years of education than their white peers. These racial differences diminished significantlyin the following three decades, most notably in the Cotton Belt. Moreover, there wasno major federal policy targeted at black schools during this period. I propose that the demandfor child labor can explain these trends in racial inequality. To test this explanation, I digitizearchival school district data and combine them with data on cotton production. I argue thatprior to 1910, the demands of cotton crowded out black schooling in this region because (1)its land endowments were conducive to growing cotton, (2) growing it was particularly childlaborintensive, and (3) black children were more frequently employed than white children.School boards under invested in black schools as a result of the demand for black child laborby both white landowners and black parents. I provide evidence that black-white differences inpublic school quality in 1910 were larger in cotton-growing regions of the South than in otherwisecomparable non-cotton growing regions. I also show that most of these racial differencesnarrowed during two periods: (1) the early 1920s slowdown of cotton production, and (2) beginningin the mid-1930s when New Deal policy indirectly discouraged cotton share tenancyand consequently suppressed demand for child labor. These results suggest a reinterpretationof how institutions developed during the Jim Crow era by emphasizing land endowments andchild labor, which in turn has consequences for black well being during the 20th century.

This paper models the bias from using potential vs actual experience in log wage models. The nature of the problem is best viewed as specification error as opposed to classical errors-in-variables.We correct for the discrepancy between potential and actual work experience and create a predicted measure of work experience. We use the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and extend our findings to the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample. Our results suggest that potential experience biases the effects of schooling and the rates of return to labor market experience. Using such a measure in earnings models underestimates the explained portion of the malefemale wage gap.We are able to separately identify the decomposition biases associated with incorrect experience measures and biased parameter estimates.Keywords: Experience, Decomposition, Specification errorJEL Classification C81 J24 J31

We typically regard aging industrial suburbs as among the least fortunate of suburban communities, possessing multiple liabilities that have undermined their viability while newer suburbs have flourished. Typically, aging industrial suburbs are dotted with abandoned industrial facilities, many of them sitting atop brownfields. Their housing stocks, home to workers in an earlier generation, were built in styles and sizes that have not been attractive to recent generations of suburban homebuyers. This paper will argue that industrial suburbs possess features that may boost their fortunes during an era when new urbanist designs are become popular. Built at higher densities than more recent suburbs, many older industrialsuburbs have walkable main streets. Often, they are well served by transit, especially rail transit, since railroads played a crucial role in transporting both goods and passengers in manufacturing centers. These design elements make them advantageous targets for redevelopment following new urbanist principles. This paper will illustrate the appeal of older industrial suburbs to current developers using examples from metropolitan Philadelphia, where a number of such communities have already attracted substantial investments. A special advantage of several of these abandoned industrial centers is their waterfront location along two major rivers in the metropolitan region. Earlier industrialists had located their plants near the rivers for pragmatic reasons. Now, the amenity value possessed by waterfront locations has fueled growing interest by developers seeking to rebuild these sites for new uses.

Problem: Reducing gasoline consumption could sharply curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Ongoing research seeks to document factors associated with green travel behavior, like walking and transit use. Purpose: We seek to determine whether green beliefs and values are associated with green travel behavior. We measure whether residents of communities with environmentalist attributes drive less, consume less gasoline, and are more likely to commute by private vehicle. We explore several channels through which green beliefs and values may affect travel behavior and vice versa. Methods: We drew our demographic, transportation, and built environment data from the 2000 Census of Population and Housing including the Public Use Microdata Sample and the 2001 National Household Travel Survey, and constructed our indicators of green ideology using voting records, political party membership, and data on hybrid auto ownership. We estimated ordinary least squares regression and linear probability models using both individual households and small areas as units of analysis. Results and conclusions: We find green ideology is associated with green travel behavior. People with green values are more likely than others to be located in communities with high population densities and proximity to city centers and rail transit stations, which are attributes conducive to environmentally friendly travel. We also find that residents of green communities engage in more sustainable travel than residents of other communities, even controlling for demographics and the effects of the built environment. Green ideology may cause green travel behavior because greens derive utility from conservation or because greens locate in, or create, areas with characteristics that promote sustainable travel. We also discuss the possibility that green travel behavior may cause green beliefs. Takeaway for practice: If greens self-select into dense, central, and transit-friendly areas, the demand for these characteristics may rise if green consciousness does. Alternatively, if these characteristics cause green consciousness, their promotion promises to increase green behavior. The implications of our finding that residents of green communities engage in more sustainable travel patterns than others depends on the causal mechanism at work. If greens conserve because they derive utility from it, then environmental education and persuasion may bring about more sustainable travel. Alternatively, if green travel behavior causes green beliefs, it is possible that attracting more travelers to alternate modes and reducing vehicle miles traveled may increase environmental consciousness, which may in turn promote other types of pro-environment behavior. Research support: None.

To improve the utility of estimates of Medicaid enrollment and uninsurance from the Current Population Survey (CPS) we use linked data from the CPS and the Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS)to build a probabilistic imputation model that partially corrects the public use data files for systematic under-reporting of Medicaid. We estimate the probability that a CPS survey case was enrolled in Medicaid,conditional on whether or not in the CPS the individual responded that they had Medicaid. We use the imputed data to develop adjusted estimates of Medicaid enrollment and uninsurance by demographic characteristics. The net Medicaid enrollment total using our imputation model for CY 2006 and 2007 is 41.0, compared to 34.0 million using the standard CPS variables. The resulting net adjusted uninsurance estimate is 4.5% below the unadjusted estimate.

This paper analyzes economic growth and income convergence using a subsample of counties from the Southern U.S. The phenomenon of regional income convergence is interesting and important through its revelation of whether living standards in poorer regions are approaching those in richer regions. Due to extensive economic interaction between counties in the U.S., spatial effects should be considered when examining regional income convergence. The results provide extremely strong evidence that spatial dependence is present in the data. Using four different model selection criteria, the spatial lag model is found to be appropriate for modeling the data. This paper adds to this relatively small section of the growth and convergence literature by investigating the impact of immigration and racial concentrations on the growth rate of per capita income in counties. Significant evidence of conditional beta-convergence among the counties included in the sample is found. Empirical evidence also supports the theory put forth by the specific-factors model, which suggests that immigration from low wage countries drives wage rates down in high wage countries. My findings reveal that counties with relatively large African-American populations experience relatively slow rates of income growth. I argue that labor market discrimination, past discrimination, pre-market discrimination, and white flight? could all be at the root of this result.

Over the past decade, several researchers have examined the extent, nature, and possibleimpact of Michigans PA 425 of 1984, the Conditional Land Transfer Act designed to fostereconomic development at the local government level. Over 369 agreements have beennegotiated and adopted over the past 24 years (between 1985 2008) under this law.Little quantitative research has been conducted to suggest causal variables responsible forinfluencing the adoption of these agreements. The research in this project involves bothdescriptive and quantitative analysis using geographic information systems and relatedquantitative tests to measure the significance of variables associated with theseagreements. This study attempts to understand the characteristics shared by communitiesexercising the 425 agreement land transfer option. The variables studied included: previousannexation history, population, population growth, housing units, housing unit growth,workforce population, workforce growth, state equalized value of property, and the contiguityof adopting units to other jurisdictions that have adopted agreements. Findings andconclusions are presented with recommendations for future research.

We investigate the hypothesis that rising inequality accounts for decreases in the U.S. aggregate marriage hazard since 1970. Despite confirming previous findings that inequality accounts for much of the decrease in marriage among younger adults before 1990, we show that inequality has a theoretically ambiguousand empirically positiveeffect on marriage among older persons. Subsequent estimates indicate that increases in inequality cannot account for broader trends in marriage, especially after inequality decelerated post-1990. Other hypotheses also struggle to explain the trend, but some evidence supports an alternate theory involving uncertainty.JEL codes: J12, D31Keywords: inequality, marriage, uncertainty

OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine the additional disease burden imparted by sinusitis and hay fever (allergic rhinitis) to patients with asthma. METHODS: Patients with a diagnosis of asthma, hay fever, or sinusitis were extracted from the National Health Interview Survey for the 1997 to 2006 adult sample. Disease groups consisting of patients with asthma alone, asthma + hay fever, asthma + sinusitis, and asthma + hay fever + sinusitis were assembled. Disease groups were then compared according to total health-care visits per year, emergency room visits per year, health-care spending per year, and number of workdays lost per year to determine the disease burden. RESULTS: We identified 11,813 patients (mean age, 45.5 years) who reported active asthma with or without hay fever or sinusitis comorbidity. Of these, 5,931 patients (50%) were identified with asthma alone, 1,134 (10%) with combined asthma + hay fever, 2,461 (21%) with asthma + sinusitis, and 2,287 (19%) with combined asthma + hay fever + sinusitis. Patients with asthma + sinusitis and those with asthma + sinusitis + hay fever had more total health-care visits and emergency room visits than did those with asthma alone (p <0.001). All three groups with comorbidities had higher healthcare expenditures than did the group with asthma alone (p < or = 0.002). Patients with asthma + sinusitis and those with asthma + hay fever + sinusitis missed more workdays than did patients in the group with asthma alone (10.0 and 13.1 versus 7.2, respectively; p <0.001). Comorbid hay fever alone did not increase workdays lost (6.6 days; p = 0.983). CONCLUSIONS: The additional disease burden of sinusitis on asthma is greater than that of hay fever. These data highlight the importance of identifying comorbid diagnoses with asthma.