Gaining entrance to a four-year college or university, particularly a selective institution, has become increasingly competitive over the last several decades. We document this phenomenon and show how it has varied across different parts of the student ability distribution and across regions, with the most pronounced increases in competition being found among higher-ability students and in the Northeast. Additionally, we explore how the college preparatory behavior of high school seniors has changed in response to the growth in competition. We also discuss the theoretical implications of increased competition on longer-term measures of learning and achievement and attempt to test them empirically; the evidence and related literature, while limited, suggests little long-term benefit.

Images and interpretations of the past, present, and future of the American racial and ethnic landscape are contradictory. Many accounts focus on the increasing diversity that results from immigration and differential natural increase as well as the proliferation of racial and ethnic categories in census data. Less attention has been paid to the formation and erosion of racial and ethnic identities produced by intermarriage and ethnic blending. The framers and custodians of census racial classifications assume a "geographic origins" definition of race and ethnicity, but the de facto measures in censuses and social surveys rely on folk categories that vary over time and are influenced by administrative practices and sociopolitical movements. We illustrate these issues through an in-depth examination of the racial and ethnic reporting by whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics in the 2000 census. The emerging pattern, labeled here as the "Americanization" of racial and ethnic identities, and most evident for whites and blacks, is of simplified racial identities with little acknowledgment of complex ancestries. National origin is the predominant mode of reporting racial and ethnic identities among Asians and Hispanics, especially first-generation immigrants. The future of racial and ethnic identities is unknowable, but continued high levels of immigration, intermarriage, and social mobility are likely to blur contemporary divisions and boundaries.

The relationship between material inequality and health is the subject of considerable debate and may depend on how the relationship is defined. The author uses stature as a measure for cumulative health outcomes to illustrate that although there was an inverse relationship between inequality and health in the nineteenth century, greater average state wealth was associated with taller individual statures. He also poses and supports a biospatial relationship between the environment and stature. Greater direct sunlight (insolation) produces more vitamin D, which is related to adult terminal stature. Stature increased with population density and urbanization in states with lower population densities than the Midwest; however, stature decreased in states with population densities greater than those in the Midwest.

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 Minnesota’s criminal process—arrest and felony conviction—are 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 ar...

The study of welfare participation in the U.S. prior to the 1996 welfare reform act and even afterward has focused on comparisons between native born and immigrant households. Analyses that have gone beyond this broad classification have focused on comparisons across race or with particular focus on particular groups like Hispanic immigrants. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study yet that tests for difference in welfare usage among immigrant groups and immigrant status. We do not expect welfare usage to differ among immigrant groups if we control for the factors that should predict welfare usage. Similarly, if immigration status does not prevent welfare usage for certain immigrants, then ceteris paribus, we do not expect welfare usage to differ among immigrant based on status. We investigate these possibilities by testing three related hypothesis using probability models. Our results suggest that birth place matters and the probability of welfare usage is not the same for all groups. We also find that for some birthplace groups, citizen and non-citizens differ with respect to welfare usage. Finally, we find that post welfare reform, the probability of being on welfare in comparison to U.S. born increased for all immigrant groups and these increases differed across groups. We provide possible explanations for our unexpected results

Economists generally assume, implicitly, that “the return to schooling” is invariant across local labor markets. We demonstrate that this outcome pertains if and only if preferences are homothetic—a special case that seems unlikely. Our theory predicts that returns to education will instead be relatively low in expensive high‐amenity locations. Our analysis of U.S. data provides support for this contention; returns to college are especially low in such cities as San Francisco and Seattle. Our findings call into question standard empirical exercises in labor economics that treat the returns to education as a single parameter.

In this chapter, A Womans Nation explores the new American economy, which, for the first time, contains a workforce evenly split along gender lines. Not only do women now make up 50 percent of the nations workforce, but working mothers are also now the primary or co-breadwinners in a majority of American families. Nevertheless, from the types of jobs women hold to how much (or how little) they are compensated, equity in the workplace has not yet been achieved, despite womens new parity in the workplace. The starkest indicator of this fact is the pay gapthe average woman working full time earns a mere 77 cents for every dollar earned by her male counterpart.

Housing policy research has a precarious link to overarching theory. Anyresemblance to replicable phenomena, though interesting and noteworthy, is coincidental and,at best, existential in the context of time, place and human interventions. Complexity in itsmost visceral form beguiles the rank and file of positivist scholars into believing that theapplication of algebraic expressions and algorithms, alone, can explicate the human dynamic,a dynamic that is galvanized by political, social and personal self-interest. Positivism invitesa construct of equivocation with an internal bias that seeks to influence values that areineffective in informing housing policy. In using the tragedy of the urban commons as acontextual metaphor to describe the disconnect between positivist policy research and housingpolicy outcomes, I challenge quantitative researchers and qualitative thinkers, alike, to engagein a pragmatic dialogue around housing policy values, practices and demonstrable outcomes.

The standard revealed-preference hedonic estimate of a city's quality of life is proportional to that city's cost-of-living relative to its wage-level. Adjusting the standard hedonic model to account for federal taxes, non-housing costs, and non-labor income produces quality-of-life estimates different from the existing literature. The adjusted model produces city rankings positively correlated with those in the popular literature, and predicts how housing costs rise with wage levels, controlling for amenities. Mild seasons, sunshine, and coastal location account for most quality-of-life differences; once these amenities are accounted for, quality of life does not depend on city size, contrary to previous findings.

Many studies find that households increase their consumption after the receipt of expected incomepayments, a result inconsistent with the life-cycle/permanent income hypothesis. Consumption canincrease adverse health events, such as traffic accidents, heart attacks and strokes. In this paper, weexamine the short-term mortality consequences of income receipt. We find that mortality increasesfollowing the arrival of monthly Social Security payments, regular wage payments for military personnel,the 2001 tax rebates, and Alaska Permanent Fund dividend payments. The increase in short-run mortalityis large, potentially eliminating some of the protective benefits of additional income.

Living arrangements have changed enormously over the last two centuries. While the average Americantoday lives in a household of only three people, in 1850 household size was twice that figure. Further,both the number of children and the number of adults in a household have fallen dramatically. Wedevelop a simple theory of household size where living with others is beneficial solely because thecosts of household public goods can be shared. In other words, we abstract from intra-family relationsand focus on households as collections of roommates. The model's mechanism is that rising incomeleads to a falling expenditure share on household public goods, which endogenously makes householdformation less beneficial and privacy more attractive. To assess the magnitude of this mechanism,we first calibrate the model to match the relationship between household size, consumption patterns,and income in the cross-section at the end of the 20th century. We then project the model back to1850 by changing income. We find that our proposed mechanism can account for 37 percent of thedecline in the number of adults in a household between 1850 and 2000, and for 16 percent of the declinein the number of children.

19世紀アメリカにおける人口移動, とくに西部への人口移動は西漸運動と呼ばれ, ターナー以来, 1世紀以上にわたって研究の対象となってきた。この間, 多くの個別研究が積み重ねられ, 近年では史料の新しい利用法も開発されたため, 西漸運動の原因と結果, その意義については, 一応の結論は出されている。しかし, 人々が西部へ移住することにより, 経済的機会をつかむことができたか否か, 西部の社会は, 東部よりも経済的に平等であったか否か, については, マクロ的見地から見た一般論のみならず, 個別の移住者の体験を通しての結論が必要とされる。ここでは, ウィスコンシンへ移住したジョージ・ジェンキンズの日記を中心に, マニュスクリプト・センサス（国勢調査の原簿）や, トラクト・ブック（公有地処分台帳）なども利用して, 上記の問題の解明に務めたい。さらに, その作業によって, 経済史研究において個別研究の持つ意味を探りたいと思う。

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Sleeping less than 7 hours daily impairs alertness and is associated with increased obesity, morbidity, and mortality; yet up to 40% of US adults do so. Population data indicate work time is the primary activity reciprocally related to sleep time in the United States. Reducing work time and its economic benefits to increase sleep time may not be feasible for most of the population. We sought to identify waking activities under discretionary control and adjacent to the sleep period that would be a more feasible source for increasing sleep time. DESIGN/PARTICIPANTS: American Time Use Survey data from 21,475 respondents aged > or = 15 years were pooled for the years 2003-2006 to explore activities in 2-hour periods prior to going to bed and past getting up on weekdays. INTERVENTIONS: N/A. RESULTS: Long workers (> or = 8 hours) terminated bed time an average of 0.68 h earlier than short workers (< 8 hours, P < 0.0001) and 1.31 h earlier than respondents not working on the interview day (P < 0.001), but time of going to bed did not differ among groups (22:37 vs. 22:42 vs. 22:37, respectively, P = 0.385). Watching television was the primary activity people engaged in before going to bed, accounting for 55.6 min (46.3%) of the 2-h pre-bed period. In the morning, travel time and work time increased steadily toward the end of the post-awakening 2-h period, accounting for 14.8% and 12.3%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Watching television may be an important social Zeitgeber for the time of going to bed. Watching less television in the evening and postponing work start time in the morning appear to be the candidate behavioral changes for achieving additional sleep. While the timing of work may not be flexible, giving up some TV viewing in the evening should be possible to reduce chronic sleep debt and promote adequate sleep in those who need it.

The employment rate of black men, and particularly of low-skill black men, fell precipitously from 1960 to 2000. At the same time, the incarceration rate of black men rose markedly. This paper examines the relation between immigration and these trends in black employment and incarceration. Using data drawn from the 1960-2000 U.S. Censuses, we find a strong correlation between immigration, black wages, black employment rates, and black incarceration rates. As immigrants disproportionately increased the supply of workers in a particular skill group, the wage of black workers in that group fell, the employment rate declined, and the incarceration rate rose. Our analysis suggests that a 10-percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the black wage by 2.5 percent, lowered the employment rate of black men by 5.9 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of blacks by 1.3 percentage points.

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays that examine different aspects of wage determination in local labour markets. The first essay investigates whether or not there are human capital externalities or spill-overs from education. I find that the fraction of college graduates in U.S. cities is associated with higher wages in the 1980s but not in the 1990s. To rationalize this pattern, I empirically investigate a model of structural change by Acemoglu (1999) and find considerable support for it in a number of dimensions. Consistent with the notion that there has been a structural change in the labour market, increases in the supply of skilled labour in the 1990s induce a change in the composition of jobs, increase inequality, unemployment, the return to education, and the wages of high-skill workers and harm low-skill workers. The second essay, which is co-authored with Paul Beaudry and David Green, develops a multi-sector search and matching model of the labour market that illustrates a mechanism through which changes in local industrial composition can cause changes in wages in all sectors of the local economy. We empirically test this model using geographical variation in industrial composition across U.S. metropolitan areas from 1970 to 2000 and find that shifts in industrial composition that favor high-paying industries impact wages in other sectors in a manner that is consistent with the model. The third chapter, co-authored with Christopher Bidner, extends the model developed in chapter two to examine the impact of changes in industrial composition on the relative wages of men and women. We find that men lost representation in high-paying industries relative to women and that these losses can account for a substantial portion of the `unexplained' gender pay gap. All three essays use data from the U.S. decennial Censuses and take U.S. metropolitan areas as local labour markets.

A system and method is provided for identifying the source of an unauthorized database disclosure. The system and method stores a plurality of past database queries and determines the relevance of the results of the past database queries (query results) to a sensitive table containing the unauthorized disclosed data. The system and method also ranks the past database queries based on the determined relevance. A list of the most relevant past database queries can then be generated which are ranked according to the relevance, such that the highest ranked queries on the list are most similar to said disclosed data. Three techniques used in embodiments of the invention include partial tuple matching, statistical linkage and deviation probability gain.

This paper explores the many avenues by which schooling affects lifetime well-being. Experiences and skills acquired in school reverberate throughout life, not just through higher earnings. Schooling also affects the degree one enjoys work and the likelihood of being unemployed. It leads individuals to make better decisions about health, marriage, and parenting. It also improves patience, making individuals more goal-oriented and less likely to engage in risky behavior. Schooling improves trust and social interaction, and may offer substantial consumption value to some students. We discuss various mechanisms to explain how these relationships may occur independent of wealth effects, and present evidence that non-pecuniary returns to schooling are at least as large as pecuniary ones. Ironically, one explanation why some early school leavers miss out on these high returns is that they lack the very same decision making skills that more schooling would help improve.