This paper establishes the cyclical properties of a novel measure of worker reallocation: long-distance migration rates within the U.S. This internal migration offers a bird's eye view of worker reallocation in the economy, as long-distance migrants often change jobs or employment status. We examine gross migration patterns during the entire postwar era using historical reports of the Current Population Survey, and supplement this analysis with statistics compiled by the Internal Revenue Service on inter-state and inter-metropolitan population flows since 1975. We find that internal migration within the U.S. is strongly procyclical, even after accounting for variation in relative local economic conditions. This procyclicality is common across most major demographic and labor force groups, although it is strongest for younger workers. Our findings suggest that cyclical fluctuations in internal migration are driven by economy-wide changes in the net cost to worker reallocation with a major role for the job finding rate of young workers.

At a time when economic competitiveness is determined to a considerable extent by the education levels of a nation's workforce, the United States is at serious risk of losing its edge in this realm. While the U.S. still has the best-educated workforce in the world, the advantage arises because of the superior education attainment levels of the generation that is approaching the age of retirement. Those entering the workforce have not attained the same level of education as their counterparts in numerous other counties. As the other countries show consistent decade-to-decade progress in enhancing the education levels of their adult populations, the U.S. has been stuck at essentially the same level for 30 years. Unless the U.S. finds ways to improve its performance in this arena, it will fall farther behind a longer list of competitor countries. Unfortunately, the mechanisms now in place to deal with the needs of undereducated adults are not getting the job done. Adult education programs are serving but a very small portion of the target populations, and the number of GEDs awarded annually is but a small fraction of those lacking a high school education. To make matters worse, programs originally designed for undereducated adults are increasingly being filled with out-of-school youth--in 2005 fully a third of the GEDs were awarded to individuals 18 and under. Over the past 15 years the trend has been that more degrees (and resources) are going to younger individuals and fewer to those 25 and older. The tools intended to address the learning needs of adults are increasingly being applied to individuals who recently dropped (or were pushed) out of the nation's high schools. The challenge is clear; the country must successfully reengage adults who have too little education (knowledge and skills) to hold living wage jobs. Failure puts the nation at competitive risk. Rising to the challenge will require developing new strategies and new tools. The old ones have proven to be insufficient to the task.

The national GIS-based historical information system HGIS Germany is a joint research project conducted bythe Institute of European History (IEG) and the Institute for Spatial Information and Surveying Technology(i3mainz). It researches the development of the German states between 1820 and 1914 down to the governmentaldistrict level, and combines this with a wealth of statistical data and information on the ruling dynasties and theirmutual relationships. All this information is researched and managed in a spatially and temporally referencedinformation system. This information can be viewed via interactive web maps at http://www.hgis-germany.de.

Over the last few decades, the fraction of young adults residing with their parents has risen in many countries. In this paper, to understand the extent of the determinants of intergenerational co-residence, we develop and estimate amodel of decision-making about family co-residence, intergenerational monetary transfers, and marriage. The model incorporates differences in parents' tastes about marriage and co-residence of their child, cultural heterogeneity, and altruism within the family. As environmental factors that influence the co-residenceand marriage decisions, we consider housing market conditions (housing rent) and marriage market conditions (matching probability). The model is estimated using a unique panel dataset on young women in Japan, which contains unusually rich information on monetary transfers between parents and children, regardless of whether the child resides with the parent. The estimated model is used to study the effects of strategic parental transfers and to perform a variety of counter-factual policy experiments of the kind recently introduced or being considered in Japan. For example, we assess how the strategic transfers affect the choices and the welfare of the parents and the children. We also evaluate the quantitative impact of housing policies, such as rent subsidy programs aimed at young people. In addition, we analyze the effect of government intervention in the marriage market in the form of the newly instituted and government-supported matching services.

This paper investigates the likelihood of rounding as a source of bias in survey data. The analysis uses thirty years of March Current Population Survey data, the 1990 Census, and the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation matched to Social Security Administration data to measure the magnitude and direction of rounding by worker characteristic. The results show three distinct trends. First, more people round their earnings today than in the past. Second, groups that are more likely to round their earnings include men, people in their prime working years (35 to 64), and those with high levels of education or with high level earnings. And third, using the matched data, these respondents appear to round their earnings down.

In his survey of research on social mobility and U.S. immigration, George Borjas underscores two insights. First, most immigrants are at a sizable earnings disadvantage, relative to nativeborn workers. Second, the earnings of different groups of immigrants vary widely. The children of immigrants "catch up" to native-born workers slowly. The jump in relative wages between the first and second generations is somewhere between 5 and 10 percentage points. Of particular concern is that the age-adjusted relative wage of both immigrants and second generation workers has been falling?a trend with bleak implications for the children of immigrants. The wide ethnic variation in the earnings of immigrants has equally important implications. National origin groups from advanced economies, such as Canada, do much better in the U.S.labor market than those from poorer countries, such as Mexico. And the initial ethnic differences tend to persist. In rough terms, about half of the difference in relative economic statuspersists from one generation to the next. Thus a 20 percentage point wage gap among ethnic groups in the immigrant generation implies a 10 point gap among second-generation groups and a 5 point gap among third-generation groups. Again in rough terms, Borjas attributes about half of that persistence to the ethnic environment in which children are raised. Borjas cautions that the rate of social mobility that immigrants enjoyed over much of the twentieth century may not continue in the future. The employment sectors seeking immigrants today are unlikely to provide the same growth opportunities as did the rapidly expanding manufacturing sector a century ago. And in contrast to the many and diverse ethnic groups that made up early twentieth-century immigrants, the large ethnic groups of immigrants today may develop separate economies and social structures, in effect hindering their social mobility.

Grouping models are widely used in economics but are subject to finite sample bias. I show that the standard errors-in-variables estimator is exactly equivalent to the jackknife instrumental variables estimator and use this relationship to develop an estimator which, unlike the standard errors-in-variables estimator, is unbiased in finite samples. The theoretical results are demonstrated using Monte Carlo experiments.Finally, I implement a model of intertemporal male labor supply using microdata from the U.S. Census. There are sizable differences in the wage elasticity across estimators, showing the practical importance of the theoretical issues even when the sample size is quite large.

Several charter schools have shown great success in improving the academic performance of students from low-performing school districts. It has been argued,however, that their success may be due to student selection. This paper tests of two aspects of these charter schools reforms using nationally representative panel data onstudent behavior and academic performance. First, I examine a policy that increases the proportion of homework that students complete. Second, I examine the impact of increasing the amount of homework assigned. Previous studies have not been able to accurately estimate the impact of homework because of important omitted variables and measurement error, which strongly bias the estimated impact of homework time. Thispaper, however, uses an instrumental variables approach with student fixed effects to account for both time-varying and time-invariant unobserved characteristics and inputs.This approach produces estimates of the impact of homework time on academic achievement that are much higher than those of previous studies. Also, when compared to popular policy changes such as decreasing class size or increasing teachers wages, a policy of assigning more homework is found to be the most cost effective policy tool. Finally, these findings suggest that assigning additional homework primarily improvesthe achievement of low performing students and students in low performing schools. Thus, assigning more homework could help close the gap in achievement between high and low performing students.

The goal of this article is to examine how immigrant enclaves influence labor market outcomes. We examine the effect of ethnic concentrations on earnings in the state of California. Individual-level wage equations that control for several observable human capital and demographic characteristics are estimated. In addition, we introduce a measure that captures an ethnic group's proportion of the metropolitan area population. In general, we find that any potentially positive enclave effects are likely to be offset by negative labor market competition effects. In particular, most enclave effects become insignificant after controlling for metro area-specific effects..

Until the early decades of the 20th century, women spent more than 60% of their prime- age yearseither pregnant or nursing. Since then, improved medical knowledge and obstetric practices reducedthe time cost associated with women's reproductive role. The introduction of infant formula also reducedwomen's comparative advantage in infant care, by providing an effective breast milk substitute. Ourhypothesis is that these developments enabled married women to increase their participation in thelabor force, thus providing the incentive to invest in market skills, potentially narrowing gender earningsdifferentials. We document these changes and develop a quantitative model that aims to capture theirimpact. Our results suggest that progress in medical technologies related to motherhood was essentialto generate the significant rise in the participation of married women between 1920 and 1960, in particularthose with children. By enabling women to reconcile work and motherhood, these medical advancementslaid the ground for the revolutionary change in women's economic role.

This thesis studies the optimal income tax scheme in four different settings. Chapter 1 focuses on the implications of lack of commitment for the optimal labor and capital income tax rates. It finds that it is optimal to converge to zero capital income taxes and positive labor income taxes in the long run. The government will follow the optimal plan as long as its debt is low enough, which implies that the lack of commitment may lead to some asset accumulation in the short run. Chapter 2 determines the optimal tax schedule when education is endogenous and observable, in a setting where agents have heterogeneous abilities. It finds that, for each ability level, it is optimal to subsidize monetary educational costs at the same marginal rate at which income is being taxed. Chapter 3 finds that when entrepreneurial labor income cannot be observed separately from capital income, then it is optimal to have positive capital taxation in the long run. Chapter 4 finds that if human capital expenses are unobservable, then in the optimal plan human capital accumulation will be distorted in the long run.

Place-based environmental regulations target pollution-intensive sectors in polluted areas. These regulations can improve local quality of life by reducing air pollution, while simultaneously reducing labor demand. I develop a framework to study the heterogeneous effects on worker welfare, considering changes in pollution exposure, sectoral and spatial labor distribution, and unemployment. I focus on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of ozone and fine particulate air pollution during the 2000’s. First, I develop a triple-difference estimator to measure the employment effects on college-educated and non-college-educated workers. I find that, on average, regulation decreased employment by 7.6% among non-college-educated workers and by 3.6% among college-educated workers. However, these average treatment effects vary substantially depending on the intensity and type of regulation. I use this causal evidence to develop empirical moments that serve to identify key parameters of a new general equilibrium search and matching model with endogenous worker location choice and pollution exposure. I use the model to evaluate the welfare effects of regulation in North Carolina. I find the effects differ by worker skill level and geographic location. Low-skill workers in regulated areas experience notable welfare losses. I show these losses can be mitigated by improving labor mobility across sectors and areas.

The sweeping changes of women's roles over the 20th century have their origin in 1870-1930. This period was a time when the patterns of women's labor supply, marriage and childbearing changed profoundly. While fertility kept falling throughout the period, the nuptiality first declined, then, around 1900, picked up again. At the same time, American women were a growing presence on the labor market: first as singles, then, after 1900, increasingly as married women, too. Single womens labor supply is viewed as the prime force for change: it strengthened womens bargaining position first on the marriage market (encouraging a postponement of marriage and childbearing), then inside marriage (increasing married womens labor supply and deepening the decline in fertility through time reallocation). A theoretical model is developed to explain both labor market and marriage market/fertility changes in women's lives and the theoretical findings are further investigated through calibration of the model.

The effect of economic change on the Latino to non-Latino White earnings gap has been well documented; however much of this research has focused on Latinos as a general category with little focus on subgroup variations. Despite varied histories and demographic characteristics Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans, the largest Hispanic subgroups, have usually been combined in analyses of earnings gaps. Consequently, we know little about differential effects of the new economy on earnings by subgroup across labor markets. Using a sample consisting of Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and non-Hispanic Whites residing in 106 metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) from the 2000 1-percent I-PUMS, we examine the influence of human capital, de-industrialization, immigration, and new economy measures on Latino/a earnings gaps. Multi-level model analyses reveal that Latino subgroups have differently sized earnings gaps, that human capital and demographic characteristics reduce the gaps by more than seventy percent, that the gaps vary independently across MSAs and that the effects of labor market characteristics on these gaps vary by subgroup. New economy characteristics are most important for non-Hispanic White males, thereby indirectly modifying gender-ethnicity gaps. These findings highlight the importance of gender/ethnicity-specific earnings analyses.

This study of Brazilian immigrants in the United States examines the extent to which the human capital and the family social capital theories explain the probability of owning a business. This study incorporates into the analytical models a variable that controls for the presence of a market niche and tests for the net effects of human and family social capital. Analyses of U.S. 2000 Census data find that high school graduates are more likely to own their own business and that a college education exerts a significantly larger effect than that of a high school education on the probability of owning a business. Additionally, the presence of a co-habiting spouse, treated as an indicator of family social capital, enhances the probability that immigrants will own their own establishment. The results support the human capital and the family social capital theories. The study discusses implications for theory and future research.

Introduction: Understanding longitudinal patterns of PrEP use among men who have sex with men (MSM) could offer insights for developing efficient and timely interventions to promote PrEP persistence. Setting: We extracted two years of pharmacy fill records for 4,000 males who initiated PrEP in 2017 at a national chain pharmacy in the US. Methods: Group-based trajectory models were used to develop PrEP trajectory clusters, with periods of use defined based on optimal PrEP seroprotection probabilities (i.e., PrEP use frequency ≥ 4 doses/week). Multinomial logistic regressions were used to evaluate the associations between sociodemographic covariates and identified trajectory group membership. Results: We identified four distinct groups of PrEP persistence trajectories: 1) persistent use of PrEP throughout the period (persistent user), 2) brief use followed by sustained cessation of PrEP use (brief user), 3) PrEP use up to the mid-term followed by sustained cessation of PrEP use (mid-term user), and 4) PrEP use, followed by cessation and subsequent re-initiation (PrEP re-initiator). 2 Persistent users and brief users accounted for 40.1% and 22.9% of the population, respectively, while mid-term users and re-initiators accounted for 18.9% and 18.2%, respectively. Older age at PrEP initiation, commercial insurance as the primary payer of PrEP, and use of specialty pharmacy were found to be associated with persistent PrEP use over the other patterns of non-persistence. Conclusions: Subgroups of PrEP users could benefit from PrEP persistence interventions that target specific timings of likely PrEP cessation or considerations of re-initiation. Key Points: Analysis of nationwide PrEP fill data revealed four use trajectories. Heterogenous timings of PrEP cessations and re-initiation suggest tailored interventions for persistence. Association of persistence with specialty pharmacy use and insurance underscores the importance of financial and medication adherence support.