The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in the economic literature. Moreover, while much is known about 19th century black legal and material conditions, less is known about how 19th century institutional arrangements were related to black stature. Although modern blacks and whites reach similar terminal statures when brought to maturity under optimal biological conditions, 19th century African-American statures were consistently shorter than whites, indicating a uniquely 19th century phenomenon may have inhibited black stature growth. It is geography and insolation that present the most striking attribute for 19th century black and statures, and greater insolation is documented here to be associated with taller black and white statures.

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in economic history. Moreover, a number of core findings in the literature are widely agreed upon. There are still some populations, places and times, however, for which antropometric evidence remains thin. One example is 19th century African-Americans in US border-states. This paper introduces a new data set from the Missouri state prison to track the heights of comparable blacks and white men born between 1820 and 1904. Modern blacks and whites come to comparable terminal statures when brought to maturity under optimal conditions; however, whites were persistently taller than blacks in the Missouri prison sample by two centimetres. Throughout the 19th century, black and white adult statures remained approximately constant, while black youth stature increased during the antebellum period.

This article considers the relationship among race, stature, and proximity to Pennsylvania's nineteenth-century dairy-producing regions. Previous studies demonstrate a positive relationship between stature and access to dairy products. However, Pennsylvania's dairy-producing region was also close to urbanized Philadelphia. Here a new dataset is used from the Pennsylvania state prison system to track the heights of black and white males incarcerated from 1829 to 1909. It is documented that both blacks and whites living in southeastern Pennsylvania near both dairy-producing counties and urbanized Philadelphia were consistently shorter than individuals born and incarcerated elsewhere, indicating that the effects of urbanization dominated proximity to dairy production. Black inmates were consistently shorter than their white counterparts. The well-known midcentury height decline is confirmed among white men and is extended to blacks as well.

Structural vector auto-regressions give conflicting results on the effects of technology shocks on hours. The results depend crucially on the assumed data generating process for hours per capita. We show that the standard measure of hours per capita and productivity have significant low frequency movements that are the source of the conflicting results. HP filtered hours per capita produce results consistent with those obtained when hours are assumed to have a unit root. We show that important sources of the low frequency movements in the standard measure are sectoral shifts in hours and the changing age composition of the working-age population. When we control for these low frequency components to determine the effect of technology shocks on hours using long-run restrictions we get one consistent answer: hours decline in the short-run in response to a positive technology shock. We further extend the analysis by examining the effects of demographic controls on the impulse responses to investment-specific technology shocks. Our results are less conclusive.

Compulsory licensing, which is permissible under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, allows domestic firms to produce inventions that are patented by foreign nationals, without the consent of patent owners. As an emergency measure, compulsory licensing offers clear benefits: it helps to deliver life-saving drugs to millions of patients. In the long run, however, the threat of compulsory licensing may reduce access to foreign technologies as it discourages foreign inventors to transfer inventions into the country. But, at the same time, compulsory licensing may generate domestic invention if experience with producing foreign inventions creates opportunities for learning and follow-up inventions. This paper uses an exogenous change in compulsory licensing as a result of World War I to measure the policys effects on domestic invention. Specifically, we compare changes in patents by domestic inventors across technologies that were differentially affected by compulsory licensing under the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA). Our data suggest that compulsory licensing has a large positive effect on domestic invention. Moreover, the effect increases with the intensity of treatment. The effect takes almost 10 years to fully materialize, which suggests that the effects of compulsory licensing may be missed in analyses of contemporary data.

This dissertation challenges the dominant frameworks used to understand the structure of opportunity available to African American women workers throughout the postindustrial era. Although many studies on African American female employment exist, it turns out that we have yet to make sense of their structure of occupational opportunities because the majority of these studies focus on the employability of the poorest and the most affluent segments of the population. I address gaps in how we understand the occupational opportunities available to African American women workers by limiting the analysis to working class African American women and accessing the structure of their job holding patterns throughout their employment career.This is a mixed method study that consists of (1) a quantitative and (2) a case study component. The quantitative component of the study, which draws from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), helps illustrate the structure of occupational opportunities available to high school educated African American women workers across age cohorts between 1970 and 2000. The case studies of urban transit and department store jobs in the San Francisco Metropolitan area offer situated examples of job change in occupations that have significantly increased their share of black female workers over the period of study. These case studies benefited from interviews with African American women employed as urban transit operators and department store clerks, who revealed the obstacles they encounter and the strategies they use during this time of immense work restructuring.Through this study, I illustrate the complexity of postindustrial era workplace inequality by documenting the extent to which workplace inequality is tied to cross group differences in returns to education and skill, as well as cross group differences in job holding patterns over time. As a group, working class African American women workers did experience a positive change in the type of occupational opportunities available to them. However, given the emergence of postindustrial era workplace innovations in worker surveillance, industry specific shifts in the organization of work, and the influence of intersecting race and gender prejudice within workplaces, evidence from this study illustrates that this progress wanes over time.

Language ability has assumed priority in current studies of the economic success ofimmigrants and minority language speakers. Past studies have shown that language ability, a keyhuman and cultural capital trait, tends to be positively associated with earnings.Building on this past research, the goal of this study is to examine how the effect ofEnglish language proficiency on earnings of Hispanic men in Florida varies by labor marketcontext. Specifically, it aims to compare the difference in the effect of English languageproficiency on earnings in areas densely populated by Spanish speakers to the effect of languageon earnings in areas dominated by English speakers. I predict that English language proficiencywill have a greater impact on earnings in areas where Spanish is not widely spoken. In areaswhere there are large enclaves of Spanish-speakers, English will likely be a less importantdeterminant of earnings. The effect of bilingualism on earnings is also analyzed in this manner.To test my hypotheses, my study consists of two parts: the first based on statisticalanalysis of US census data and the second based on qualitative interviews. Findings show thatEnglish language ability is indeed an important determinant of earnings both in areas with a highproportion of Spanish-speakers and in areas with a low proportion of Spanish-speakers.However, results from the statistical analysis show that English language ability has a greater1 1impact on earnings in areas with a high proportion of Spanish-speakers. While English languageproficiency yields greater earnings in these areas, Spanish language proficiency also has apositive effect on earnings. Fully bilingual Hispanics earn more than their English onlycounterparts in these areas.

This comprehensive volume blends broad coverage of basic methods for symbolizing spatial data with an introduction to cutting-edge data visualization techniques. Offers clear descriptions of various aspects of effective, efficient map design, with an emphasis on the practical application of design theories and appropriate use of map elements. Clearly contrasts different approaches for symbolizing spatial data, in addition to individual mapping techniques. This edition includes updated material on the history of thematic cartography, maps and society, scale and generalization, and cartograms and flow mapping. For those interested in learning more about cartography

Existing studies find little evidence that licensing has increased barber earnings. In this paper we measure the effect of licensing on barber earnings using recent microlevel data from the 2000 U.S. Census. as well as several new measures of the strictness of state licensing of barbers. Our results suggest that certain licensing provisions may have increased the earnings of barbers by as much as 26 percent. The magnitude of our estimates is somewhat higher than those found in studies examining the effects of licensing in similar professions.

Laws that provided pensions for Union army veterans were apparently color-blind, but whites and African Americans experienced the pension system differently. Black veterans were less likely to apply for pensions in the programs early years, and no matter when they applied they encountered two stages of bias, first from examining physicians and then a considerably more systematic discrimination on the part of Pension Bureau reviewers. There is evidence that pension income reduced mortality among African-American veterans, underscoring the tangible results of justice denied.

Counties are the smallest unit for which mortality data are routinely available, allowing consistent and comparable long-term analysis of trends in health disparities. Average life expectancy has steadily increased in the United States but there is limited information on long-term mortality trends in the US counties This study aimed to investigate trends in county mortality and cross-county mortality disparities, including the contributions of specific diseases to county level mortality trends.

A look at policing and the war on drugs in Baltimore's high-crime Eastern District.

This research evaluates the accuracy of demand forecasts using a sample of recently-completed projects in Minnesota and identies the factors inuencing the inaccuracy in forecasts. The forecast traffic data for this study is drawn from Environmental Impact Statements(EIS), Transportation Analysis Reports (TAR) and other forecast reports produced by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) with a horizon forecast year of 2010 or earlier. The actual traffic data is compiled from the database of traffic counts maintained by the Office of Traffic Forecasting and Analysis section at Mn/DOT. Based on recent research on forecast accuracy, the (in)accuracy of traffic forecasts is estimated as a ratio of the forecast traffic to the actual traffic. The estimation of forecast (in)accuracy also involves a comparison of the socioeconomic and demographic assumptions, the assumed networks to the actual in-place networks and other travel behavior assumptions that went into generating the traffic forecasts against actual conditions. The analysis indicates a general trend of underestimation in roadway traffic forecasts with factors such as highway type, functional classication, direction playing an inuencing role. Roadways with higher volumes and higher functional classications such as freeways are subject to underestimation compared to lower volume roadways/functional classications. The comparison of demographic forecasts shows a trend of overestimation while the comparison of travel behavior characteristics indicates a lack of incorporation of fundamental shifts and societal changes.

This paper explores the dynamics of the division of labor across generations. The model studies the role of played by differences in ability and by differences in opportunities created by the different time horizon across workers. In this framework, both the distribution of abilities and the timing of arrival in the labor market determine the distribution of generations across industries. At steady state, the occupational choice of workers only depends on the distribution of abilities across the population as in the classical Roy model. During the transition, it depends on both the timing of arrival in the labor market and on the distribution of comparative advantages. Empirical evidences from US Census data from 1940 to 2005 broadly confirm the implications of the model. I find that age differences across industries are large but also that they fluctuate over time. In line with the predictions of the model, industries in which cohort effects are persistent tend to be industries with a high wage differential and higher returns to experience. JEL classification: E24, J24

We use heterogeneity in the timing of televisions introduction to different local markets to identify the effect of preschool television exposure on standardized test scores during adolescence. Our preferred point estimate indicates that an additional year of preschool television exposure raises average adolescent test scores by about 0.02 standard deviations. We are able to reject negative effects larger than about 0.03 standard deviations per year of television exposure. For reading and general knowledge scores, the positive effects we find are marginally statistically significant, and these effects are largest for children from households where English is not the primary language, for children whose mothers have less than a high school education, and for nonwhite children.

Although movement to new and unfamiliar places, referred to as onward migration, is prominent in the conceptualization of migration, this form of migration has seldom been the focus of empirical research. This lack of intense analysis of onward migration is largely a result of the past data limitations. The foremost purpose of the research presented here is to lessen this gap by comparing the odds of onward migration of Hispanics, blacks, and whites in the United States. Goldscheider and Uhlenbergs basic minority group status hypothesis is used to guide the investigation. The minority status hypothesis posits that even when groups that have been assimilated into a society with respect to social and economic characteristics, differences in some social behaviors might persist. Utilizing a panel survey of young adults that is nationally representative of the U.S., NLSY79, this study finds significantly higher odds of onward migration for whites than for Hispanics and blacks, two major minority groups in American society. A secondary purpose of the study is to report the observed relationships between onward migration and thirteen control variables that are introduced to provide a rigorous test of the minority group status hypothesis.

Although economists and historians have made progress in understanding the rise of public education and the impact of legislation regarding child labor and compulsory school attendance in the U.S., the literature has neither documented nor analyzed a coincident feature of the educational movement that involved widespread efforts to enable children to combine work and schooling. Evening schools, in particular, were common throughout the U.S., and enrollment in the schools increased over the second half of the nineteenth century. This paper brings together information from a variety of sources to trace the history of the public evening school movement into the post-WWI period. The analysis econometrically examines the diffusion of evening schools and their impact on educational outcomes of poor children. Findings suggest that the diffusion of public evening schools comprised efforts to educate disadvantaged youths, assimilate immigrants, and alleviate overcrowding in day schools. Although contemporary critics questioned their effectiveness, public evening school programs in the late 1800s appear to have significantly improved literacy outcomes for working youths and children of immigrants. By documenting and analyzing this relatively neglected aspect of public education, and bringing new data to light, this paper provides a first quantitative look at the expansion of evening schools in the U.S. and holds broader relevance for understanding the role of non-traditional education alternatives in the schooling decisions of children in poor households.

By relating strike outcomes and durations to the value of the disputed wage change and to the cost to each side of continuing the strike, this paper tests the hypothesis that the war of attrition with asymmetric information model of strikes accurately describes the characteristics of strikes over wages in the United States in the early to middle part of the 1880s. That hypothesis is not rejected by linear, probit, or nonparametric kernel estimation. Specifically, variables that decrease a side's cost of striking or increase its opponent's cost are shown to increase its maximum holdout time, and vice versa, and strike duration increases with the a value of the prize in dispute and with uncertainty about the outcome. Alternative game theoretic models of strikes-signaling and screening models, and models with ongoing negotiations-do not fit the data as well. We also explore why the strikes took the form of wars of attrition, and why later strikes did not. Our results have implications for modern union behavior in the face of globalization.

Women's choices appear to emphasize child welfare more than those of men. This paper presents new evidence on how suffrage rights for American women helped children to benefit from the scientific breakthroughs of the bacteriological revolution. Consistent with standard models of electoral competition, suffrage laws were followed by immediate shifts in legislative behavior and large, sudden increases in local public health spending. This growth in public health spending fueled large-scale door-to-door hygiene campaigns, and child mortality declined by 815% (or 20,000 annual child deaths nationwide) as cause-specific reductions occurred exclusively among infectious childhood killers sensitive to hygienic conditions.

Already in 2007 workers began to feel the effects of a slowing economy. Job creation fell, unemployment rose and wages remained flat. But the cost of living in Florida continued to rise, and job benefits remain weak, signaling trouble for Floridas workers for the near future.