This paper draws a connection between ethnic labor market networks in the American Midwest when it was first being settled, the local identity that emerged endogenously to support these networks, and occupational mobility today. Individuals born in counties with greater ethnic fractionalization in 1860, which we expect to be associated with stronger local identity, are significantly less likely to hold professional jobs, which come with greater geographical mobility, in 2000. A further connection is made between local identity and a particular social institution the church to explain the persistence of identity over multiple generations. We expect local identity to be positively correlated with the performance of the local church, which supports and is supported by this cultural trait, and as predicted, counties with greater ethnic fractionalization in 1860 are associated with greater religious participation over many years in the future.

We estimate a time series of intergenerational economic mobility using a two sample estimation approach that matches individuals in the Census to synthetic parents in the prior generation based on state of birth and cohort. We find that mobility increased from 1950 to 1980 but has declined sharply since 1980. While our estimator places greater weight on birth location effects than the standard intergenerational coefficient, evidence suggests that the size of the bias is small and unlikely to account for the sharp change since 1980. The recent decline in mobility is only partially explained by education. Our preferred set of results suggest that the rate at which earnings are regressing to the mean is slower now than at any time in the post World War II period causing economic differences between families to persist longer than they had mid-century. However, current rates of positional mobility, as measured by the intergenerational correlation, appear historically normal.

The North Orkney Population History Project was started to understand the determinants of population change in the northern half of the Orkney archipelago from the 18th to the 20th centuries. After four years of fieldwork much data on the population and landscape of Orkney have been collected. This thesis is the first detailed analysis of the demographic data collected by the project. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of family fertility and childhood mortality in the Northern Orkney Islands from the mid 19th to the late 20th centuries. I begin by providing a thorough description of the population of the Northern Orkney Islands from 1851 to 2001. I describe changes that have occurred in fertility, mortality and population composition during this time period. To analyze fertility I estimate the effects of individual, household and family characteristics on birth interval data generated from marriage and birth records collected from the Registrar General of Scotland’s vital registration system using Cox proportional hazards models. Results indicate that farm families tend to have longer birth intervals than nonfarm families and the presence of post-reproductive grandparents can also lengthen birth intervals. Building on the results from the fertility analysis I estimate the effects of individual and household level characteristics on infant and childhood mortality, again relying on the Cox model for all analyses. Results indicate a decreased risk of death for children living in farm families relative to nonfarm families and that higher order and twin births face a substantial increase in risk of death relative to lower order and singleton births. Based on the data for Northern Orkney, I suggest that the farm household by solidifying its economic interests and managing its household production system has out competed nonfarm families and led to the mass emigration of many of these families from the Northern Isles over the past century.

This research examines how same-sex and heterosexual Black/White interracial couples negotiate racial difference in their relationship. It builds upon recent scholarship on interracial couples and families as sites where racial meanings and identities are negotiated by introducing sexuality as a critical mediating force. Black/White heterosexual relationships have historically been stringently surveilled and policed because they have threatened to blur racial lines of genealogy whereby property and White privilege are transmitted. Yet, scholarship on interracial intimacy has failed to problematize heterosexuality itself or to examine how racial difference is negotiated outside of a heterosexual context, in lesbian and gay relationships. Using in-depth interviews with each member of 40 interracial couples and ethnographic fieldwork with four couples, I respond to these theoretical and empirical gaps by investigating the following questions: How does sexuality influence the manner in which interracial couples interpret and negotiate their racial difference? How does sexual identity mediate the influence of interracial intimacy on racial identities? How do . . .

Using U.S. Census microdata, the authors show that, on average, workers change occupation and industry less in more densely populated areas. The result is robust to standard demographic controls, as well as to including aggregate measures of human capital and sectoral mix. Analysis of the displaced worker surveys shows that this effect is present in cases of involuntary separation as well. On the other hand, the authors actually find the opposite result (higher rates of occupational and industrial switching) for the subsample of younger workers. These results provide evidence in favor of increasing-returns-to-scale matching in labor markets. Results from a back-of-the-envelope calibration suggest that this mechanism has an important role in raising both wages and returns to experience in denser areas.

Individuals from diverse status backgrounds pursue entrepreneurship, and approximately half of those who seek to start businesses--nascent entrepreneurs--form startup teams of two or more persons. Using data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED), I examined how individual status characteristics influence group processes and entrepreneurial outcomes. I also studied how team status characteristics and group processes influence entrepreneurial outcomes. I found that status characteristics influenced the assistance team members provide to their startups. My results showed gender to be a significant status characteristic in that gender composition influenced assistance provisions, and secondly that men and women differed in perceptions of how status affected assistance provisions in their teams. I also found that the levels and types of assistance that team members provided to their startup teams reduced their odds of abandoning startup activities and increased their odds of establishing operational businesses or remaining active in entrepreneurship. However, I found little evidence that individual status, team diversity, or team relationships directly influenced startup outcomes for nascent entrepreneurs. I did find that average status of startup teams and close relationships among team members sometimes improved respondents’ entrepreneurial outcomes when team members provided assistance at high levels. Additionally, I found that the influence of individual status characteristics on entrepreneurial outcomes were contingent on team membership and the levels of assistance team members provided. Therefore, although my results do not pinpoint the sorts of startup teams potential nascent entrepreneurs should form for optimal results given their status characteristics, they do demonstrate that status expectations influence group processes and that, much more so than resources originating from entrepreneurs’ status characteristics, group processes influence the conditions of startups over time.

Aiming at the GIS database design of the historical administrative regions, with the case study in Shaanxi Province in Qing period, this paper discusses the principle and methods for the database design and compilation of county level territory map. And it introduces the application in the study of historical population and land use.

Objective. We document intermarriage patterns between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites over the 1990 to 2000 period in 155 U.S. metropolitan areas and evaluate the effects of spatial, cultural, and economic assimilation on interdecade changes in intermarriage. We hypothesize that changes in Hispanic-white intermarriage during the 1990s reflect changing spatial, cultural, and economic assimilation among U.S. Hispanics. Methods. We use data from the 1990 and 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Samples. Results. Analyses show that intermarriage between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites declined during the 1990s, a result fueled in part by burgeoning immigration of Hispanics, especially Mexicans. The 1990s also ushered in a period of increasing Hispanic segregation from non-Hispanic whites, growing language barriers, and accelerated educational inequality, which also dampened Hispanic-white intermarriage rates. Conclusions. Our results imply that the Hispanic population is at a transition point, if intermarriage rates are an indication, and possibly a new period of retrenchment in the assimilation process.

Background: Socioeconomic gradient effects in late 19th century mortality have been well documented, but the examination of gradient effects and morbidity conditions has received less attention. Design: This paper analyses the 1880 1% PUMS data to examine all-cause morbidity and compares chronic and infectious diseases. Findings: Using a socioeconomic index based on occupation classification, preliminary findings from the existing 1% 1880 PUMS suggest that gradient effects in morbidity are evident but to a limited extent. The relationship between socioeconomic status and infectious diseases is a steeper gradient than that of chronic conditions. Conclusions: Contemporary theories of health inequality suggest that differences in prevalence of morbidity conditions are rooted in inequalities within the social structure. Findings of gradient effects in the late 19th century further support these theories.

ObjectiveTo identify how health insurance coverage trends (public, private and uninsured) changed forHispanic/Latino children from 1996 to 2005.Data SourcesThis analysis uses data from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and EconomicSupplements (CPS-ASEC) from calendar years 1996, 1997, 2004, and 2005 for children ages 0to 18 years old. Data are pooled across two years to ensure adequate sample size.Study DesignInsurance rates for children identifying as Hispanic/Latino are categorized by source of coverage(private, public, or uninsured). Logistic regression determines the role of race/ethnicity on healthinsurance status, adjusting for citizenship status, child characteristics, migration status, andgeography.Data Collection/Extraction MethodsThe CPS-ASEC is publicly available from the Census Bureau. Extracted data were analyzedusing STATA SE 9.0. Svy procedures were used to control for the complex survey design of theCPS-ASEC.Principal FindingsHispanic/Latino children saw significant reductions in the percent of uninsured children from28.2 percent to 22.0 percent and significant increases in public health insurance from 30.3percent to 39.6. Health insurance coverage varies widely between Hispanic/Latinosubpopulations. Logistic regression shows that the likelihood of Hispanic/Latino children beinguninsured relative to non-Hispanic white children did not change during this period.ConclusionsThe expansions in public health insurance programs between 1996/97 and 2004/05 havesignificantly increased the number of Hispanic/Latino children with health insurance coverage.During this period, non-Hispanic white children also so significant increases in the number ofchildren with health insurance coverage, leaving baseline disparities between the groups in termsof health insurance coverage.

This review considers the recently released study by Susan Aud of the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation, concerning the fiscal effects of school vouchers policies. Aud calculates the simple difference between, on the one hand, state and local government spending on students attending traditional public schools, and, on the other, the government spending on children opting for vouchers to private schools. Aud finds a cumulative savings of $444 million over a 15-year period nationwide. Aud’s analysis does confirm an obvious point: if state and local governments subsidize vouchers at a lower rate than public schooling, then, all other things being equal, state and local expenditures will decrease. Aud argues in particular that vouchers offer a win-win scenario for local school districts, suggesting that districts losing students to vouchers may simultaneously increase spending per pupil on those left behind while, at the same time, decreasing spending overall. This review concludes that Aud’s assumption of increased per-pupil spending by school districts might be true, but the assumption of decreased total budget likely is not. Further, even if state and local governments were, in fact, able to reduce instructional expenses by $444 million over 15 years, this was merely a drop in the bucket – she describes a savings of less than 1/100th of one percent of annual public school spending, or about 60 cents per child per year.

Empirical analyses of sex differences in the career consequences of family migration have focused on adjudicating between the humancapital and the gender-role explanations but have ignored the potential influence of gender inequality in the structure of the labor market. In this paper we estimate conditional difference-in-difference modelswith individual-, family- and occupation-level data to test a structuralexplanation that attributes sex differences in the returns to family migration to occupational sex segregation. Despite using measures of relevant occupational characteristics and occupational fixed effects, our results do not support the structural explanation. Instead, theresults add to the body of empirical evidence that is consistent with the gender-role explanation of sex differences in the experience of family migration.

Prior to the modern civil rights movement of the 1960s, the pay gap between African-American and white workers in the South was large overall, but also quite variable across location. Using 1940 census data, I estimate the white-black earnings gap of men for separate county groups called state economic areas, adjusting for individual differences in schooling and experience. I show that the gap was significantly greater in areas where, ceteris paribus, blacks were a larger proportion of the workforce, plantation institutions were more prevalent, more of the population was urban, and white voters exhibited segregationist preferences.

This technical report describes a computer-based model of urban disaster recovery. The model simulates the recovery dynamics of households, businesses, neighborhoods, and the community as a whole following a disaster. Building on prior work, this model represents a second- generation prototype. Like its predecessor, the model is based in the empirical literature and is distinctive in its emphasis on recovery time paths, spatial disparities, and linkages between different sectors of a community. Household recovery, for example, is influenced not only by housing damage but socio-economic attributes such as income level as well as by business recovery and the loss and restoration of critical infrastructures. Significant improvements have been made to both the underlying conceptual model and the model's implementation. A key refinement of the conceptual model pertains to the use of more meaningful indicators of recovery. With respect to implementation, the model is now fully modular in design, which provides substantially greater flexibility in implementation and testing. The model is also now scalable, allowing ready representation of any number of neighborhoods and agents within these neighborhoods. The refined model is applied to the City of Los Angeles for the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Extensive efforts were made to gather detailed data on the conditions and effects of the Northridge earthquake, and to use these data to test and calibrate the model to the extent possible. Nonetheless, available data were found to be quite limited for model calibration purposes. Results indicated favorable performance in certain aspects of the model and identified areas where further refinements are needed. Models of urban disaster recovery have several potential uses, including decision support and education. Examples of "what-if" explorations are provided to illustrate the types of analyses that can be conducted with this model. The report concludes with a discussion of potential applications, advances, limitations, and priorities for further research. One of the greatest needs is for more systematic empirical data on pre-disaster urban conditions, as well as disaster recovery.

The first essay provides a theoretical framework that informs the ongoing debate regarding the effect of conservation easement subsidies on local property tax revenue. Supporters claim that conservation easements increase property tax revenue by providing environmental amenities that increase the value of adjacent properties. Critics argue that they decrease property tax revenue by lowering land values and shrinking the tax base. In instances when local property tax revenue decline due to the income tax deductibility of conservation easements, the decline is larger when the demand for land is more elastic, the proportion of non-agricultural land in the county is larger, the agricultural tax benefit is larger, and there is less Ricardian rent on agricultural land. The second essay examines the role of political parties in affecting presidential control and congressional oversight of antitrust enforcement. The Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust is a presidential appointee who carries out the administration's desired level of antitrust enforcement. Congressional legislators have oversight and appropriations powers over the Antitrust Division. I assume that Democratic and Republican legislators have different preferences about the proper level of appropriations for the Antitrust Division. In spite of these presidential party control and congressional oversight relationships, I do not find any political effect on the number of antitrust cases filed from 1903 to 2005. My result suggests that Division bureaucrats have wide discretion in case selection and are independent of the influence of the White House and the Congress. The third essay studies the effect of a change in the sex ratio of males to females on the relative price of human sexual relations. The illegitimate birth rate is used as an instrument for the price of sexual relations. The reduction in the number of available sex partners for women during World War II decreased the price that remaining men had to pay for sex. One result of this lower price is an increase in the number of illegitimate children born during the war. The male scarcity also resulted in females marrying less suitable males who are different from their wives in terms of age, educational attainment, and real income.