Search Results
Working Paper
The Role of Social Costs in Response to Labor Market Opportunities: Differences across Race
Using the American Community Survey between 2005 and 2019, this paper investigates the role constraints to migration might play in explaining racial/ethnic disparities in the labor market. We find that Black workers are typically less responsive than White workers to changes in job opportunities, but responsiveness increases when those opportunities present themselves in locations with a higher share own-minority population. We construct an education/race specific Bartik shift-share instrument to control for potential endogeneity of growth in job opportunities.
Working Paper
Unauthorized Mexican Workers in the United States: Recent Inflows and Possible Future Scenarios
The U.S. economy has long relied on immigrant workers, many of them unauthorized, yet estimates of the inflow of unauthorized workers and the determinants of that inflow are hard to come by. This paper provides estimates of the number of newly arriving unauthorized workers from Mexico, the principal source of unauthorized immigrants to the United States, and examines how the inflow is related to U.S. and Mexico economic conditions. Our estimates suggest that annual inflows of unauthorized workers averaged about 170,000 during 1996-2014 but were much higher before the economic downturn that ...
Working Paper
Does Access to Free Pre-Kindergarten Increase Maternal Labor Supply?
In this paper, we evaluate the effects of free pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs on the labor force participation (LFP) of mothers. We use variation in pre-K rules across all US states, including income eligibility requirements in some states. To estimate the causal effects of access to pre-K on labor supply, we exploit the panel aspect of the monthly Current Population Survey between 2002 and 2019. Specifically, we look at the change in labor market behavior of women when their child becomes age-eligible for pre-K, controlling for individual factors. We find that access to free pre-K ...
Journal Article
Mismatch of Jobs and People: Do Migration Constraints Put Racial Minorities at a Disadvantage?
Using the American Community Survey between 2005 and 2017, this article explores the evidence for potential migration constraints by comparing distributions of people and jobs across race and education. Using the Delta Index of dissimilarity, it illustrates a greater distributional mismatch between workers and jobs among racial minorities, relative to White non-Hispanics. This mismatch suggests greater migration constraints among racial minorities.
Working Paper
Migration Constraints and Disparate Responses to Changing Job Opportunities
Using the Current Population Survey between 1996 and 2018, this paper investigates the role constraints to migration might play in explaining racial/ethnic disparities in the labor market. The Delta Index of dissimilarity is used to illustrate a greater distributional mismatch between race/education specific workers and jobs among minorities relative to white non-Hispanics. Regression analysis then shows that this mismatch is consistent with minorities being less responsive to changes in the distribution of job opportunities. However, minorities are more responsive when the growing job ...
Working Paper
The Introduction of Formal Childcare Services in Inuit Communities and Labor Force Outcomes
We study the impacts of the introduction of formal childcare services to 28 Inuit communities in Canada's North. We use geographical variation in the timing of the introduction of childcare services in the late 1990s and early 2000s to estimate the impact of increased access to childcare. We combine the 1996, 2001, and 2006 long-form census files with data on the opening dates of childcare centres and the number of childcare spaces in each of the 28 communities over time. We find evidence of impacts on female labour force participation driven by multi-adult households in Quebec. Point ...
Working Paper
Immigrants in the U.S. labor market
Immigrants supply skills that are in relatively short supply in the U.S. labor market and account for almost half of labor force growth since the mid-1990s. Migrant inflows have been concentrated at the low and high ends of the skill distribution. Large-scale unauthorized immigration has fueled growth of the low-skill labor force, which has had modest adverse fiscal and labor market effects on taxpayers and U.S.-born workers. High-skilled immigration has been beneficial in most every way, fueling innovation and spurring entrepreneurship in the high tech sector. Highly skilled immigrants have ...
Working Paper
How Does Immigration Fit into the Future of the U.S. Labor Market?
U.S. GDP growth is anticipated to remain sluggish over the next decade, and slow labor force growth is a key underlying reason. Admitting more immigrants is one way U.S. policymakers can bolster growth in the workforce and the economy. A larger role for immigrant workers also can help mitigate other symptoms of the economy’s long-run malaise, such as low productivity growth, declining domestic geographic mobility, and falling entrepreneurship, as well as help address the looming mismatch between the skills U.S. employers want and the skills U.S. workers have. While some might argue that ...
Working Paper
Is Our Fiscal System Discouraging Marriage? A New Look at the Marriage Tax
We develop, apply, and test a new measure of the marriage tax: the reduction in future spending from getting married. Our measure is a comprehensive, actuarial (expected) present value. It incorporates all major and most minor US tax and benefit programs, weighing the present value of additional net taxes from marrying along each marital survivor path by the path’s probability. And it assumes clone marriage—marrying oneself—to ensure the living-standard loss from marrying is unaffected by spousal choice. We calculate our marriage tax for young respondents using the Survey of Consumer ...
Working Paper
The Effect of Housing First Programs on Future Homelessness and Socioeconomic Outcomes
Housing First programs provide housing assistance without preconditions for homeless individuals as a platform for rehabilitation. Despite the programs’ increasing popularity, limited evidence exists on their effects on socioeconomic outcomes. Using a novel dataset combining administrative records from multiple public agencies in Los Angeles County and a random case manager assignment design, I estimate that Housing First assistance reduces homelessness and crime, increases income and employment, and does not have a detectable effect on healthcare utilization. Cost-benefit analysis implies ...