This dissertation presents three empirical studies on the distribution and role of social capital among immigrants in the United States. Using data from two national datasets – the New Immigrant Survey (NIS 2003, 2007) and the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS 2000) – it examines the implications of social capital for immigrants’ social and economic integration. In doing so, it addresses several key limitations within migration research. The first limitation it addresses is the focus of prior research on migrants’ co-ethnic (bonding) social capital and the limited research on immigrants’ “bridging” social capital and distributional inequities across immigrant groups. Second, while most research has focused on role of social capital in economic integration, relatively little is known about the short-run and long-term implications of immigrants’ social capital for their health and well-being. Third, prior research has generally focused on specific immigrant groups, particularly Hispanic and Asian immigrants, and it is unclear if prior findings are generalizable to immigrants overall or if they are simply capturing group and/or context-specific effects of social capital. This dissertation includes three studies that provide pieces of evidence that address these limitations and contribute to the migration literature. In the first study, I explore the link between race, immigration status and social network diversity. Using data on personal network characteristics from the SCCBS (2000), I examine the role of race and immigration status in the distribution of ethnicity and status-bridging social capital. Findings confirm the double disadvantage of minority and outsider status for minority immigrants when it comes to access to network diversity, which is to say group (i.e. race) differences in native-immigrant gaps in access to ethnicity-bridging social capital. The findings also show that this double disadvantage is explained away by group differences in network ethnic diversity, and that race and immigrant status are a factor in determining the return from network ethnic diversity in terms of network quality, which is reflective of the extant socioeconomic stratification system in the United States. In the second study, I use a nationally representative data of immigrants from the NIS (2003), to examine the link between reliance of new immigrants on “bonding” social capital for job search and two indicators of labor market performance: earnings and occupational prestige. I find that while using a “relative” to find a job generally has a negative effect on both earnings and occupational prestige, this effect is not shared across all immigrants, which explains inconsistent findings in prior studies of the role of co-ethnic social capital in the labor market outcomes of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. In the third study, I turn my attention to the immigrant health literature, which has largely focused on the acculturation-health relationship and largely ignored the significance of network processes, particularly the interethnic integration of new immigrants, for the short-term and long-term health outcomes of immigrants. I use longitudinal data from the NIS (2003, 2007), which includes various measures of health status and behaviors, and examine the contemporaneous and longitudinal associations between interethnic social capital and health. I find positive cross-sectional associations with negative health behaviors (smoking, drinking and dietary change), on the one hand, and positive long-term (lagged) effects on health status (self-rated health and the incidence of chronic diseases), on the other. These results find evidence for the time-dependent health implications of interethnic network integration for the health status of immigrants in the United States.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

O objetivo desta dissertação consiste sobretudo em estabelecer as conexões entre o recente aumento no uso relativo de trabalhadores qualificados (em comparação aos não qualificados) e medidas de tecnologia, capital físico e tarifas, com especial enfoque para a manufatura brasileira nas últimas duas décadas. Para tanto, faz-se uso da metodologia de Berman, Bound & Griliches (1994), tendo a intensidade de P&D como proxy para progresso técnico. A evidência de complementaridade entre tecnologia e trabalho qualificado aparece mais robusta e fortemente entre 1994 e 1997, enquanto que o capital físico mostrou-se bastante correlacionado com o emprego de qualificados em todo o período considerado (1989-97). Já os impactos do comércio internacional mostraram-se limitados e pouco robustos. / The main goal of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between skill upgrading and measures of technology, physical capital and tariffs, with emphasis on Brazilian manufacturing for the last two decades. We use Berman, Bound & Griliches’s (1994) methodology, with R&D intensity as a proxy for technological change. We found robust evidence of technology-skill complementarity for 1994-97, and positive correlation between physical capital and use of skilled labor for 1989-97. The impacts of international trade were weaker and less robust.

This thesis studies the effects of local environments on perceptions. The last chapter examines older workers' responses to unemployment benefits cuts. In the first essay, I study the effects of neighborhoods on perceived inequality and preferences for redistribution in the context of Barcelona. I first construct a novel measure of inequality based on the geospatial distribution of housing. I then elicit inequality perceptions and preferences for redistribution from an original large-scale survey. I link these measures to respondents' specific local environments using exact addresses. I identify the causal effects of neighborhoods using two different approaches. The first is an outside-the-survey quasi-experiment that exploits within-neighborhood variation in respondents' recent exposure to new apartment buildings. The second is a within-survey experiment inducing variation in respondents' information set about inequality across neighborhoods. Local environments significantly influence inequality perceptions but only mildly affect demand for redistribution. In the second essay, I study the effects of neighborhoods on perceived immigration and preferences for redistribution. I construct flexible definitions of local neighborhoods by aggregating census tracts and measure immigration at this fine geographic level. I elicit immigration perceptions and preferences for redistribution from my original survey. Most respondents significantly overestimate the number of immigrants in the country, but those residing in neighborhoods with more immigrants are more likely to do so. Misperceptions negatively correlate with demand for redistribution and are partly explained by the local immigrant composition. They are exacerbated when more African or Asian immigrants reside in the local area. In the third essay, I causally estimate the effects of pro-cyclical unemployment-assistance (UA) reductions on job search behavior and re-employment outcomes using reform-induced changes in UA durations for older workers in Spain. Benefit reductions are effective in bringing workers back to work and reduce non-employment duration, but also induce displacements out of the labor force and strong substitution patterns towards less generous UA programs, highlighting the social insurance role of long-term benefits during economic downturns. Despite the sharp drop in non-employment duration, I also document a significant decrease in re-employment wages, consistent with a reduction in workers' reservation wages and limited duration dependence.

Do federal policies influence program offerings for career and technical education(CTE)? Often the implication of compliance and the expectation of connecting compliance to funding is considered a tactic to leverage expectations on a large scale. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if the CTE programs located in a singular region of Texas were compliant with federal expectations by way of evaluating the alignment of programs offered and local labor markets prior to the implementation of Perkins V. The evaluation of a variety of archival data and subsequent findings of the correlation of alignment of programs within the region along with the amount of federal Perkins's dollars spent on CTE was a confirmed as an effective policy reform measure. Additional evaluations included the combination of federal and state spending in correlation to the number of programs offered in career and technical education along with the actual CTE student enrollment of a given district. Major findings showed that through a moderation analysis for some districts the number of programs offered could be influenced by program funding and size. In addition, this study confirmed that many programs are indeed compliant, however compliance does not guarantee program opportunities when resources and enrollment are abundant. Recommendations for future studies concerning administrative decisions for programming and compliance are discussed.

This dissertation analyzes the determinants of labor market outcomes, with a focus on the labor market return to post-secondary education. The first chapter analyzes the matching of firms and recent college graduates through on-campus recruiting. Based on in-depth interviews with employers and career services personnel, I develop a theoretical model describing how firms choose target campuses given relevant search frictions. The model's central insight is that the decision to recruit at a university and the wage offer are driven not just by the university's quality, but also by the quality of the surrounding universities. There is strong empirical support for this prediction using the Baccalaureate and Beyond survey and newly collected data from 39 finance and consulting firms. Holding university quality constant, a university with a better regional rank is more likely to attract firms, and its graduates have higher earnings (controlling for the individual's test score). Structural estimation suggests that search frictions have important consequences for firm hiring strategies, student outcomes, and profits in this market. The second chapter analyzes whether there is a differential labor market return to certificates and Associate's degrees from for-profit relative to not-for-profit universities. Using the Beginning Postsecondary Student Survey and Transcript Data, we find no statistically significant differential return. Point estimates suggest a slightly lower return to a for-profit certificate and a slightly higher return to a for-profit Associate's degree. There is considerable variation in the return to certification across majors, including many with negligible or negative returns. The third chapter analyzes the impact of teen motherhood on labor market investments and outcomes, using five cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth. Teen mothers who conceived pre-maritally obtained less education (especially socioeconomically advantaged teens), married earlier and faced a higher risk of never marrying (especially after 1960). Socioeconomically advantaged teens avoided this negative outcome. Women who had been teen mothers in the 1940s and 1950s appear to have been at a disadvantage in the labor market of the 1970s, and faced higher costs of divorce. Motherhood positively affected labor force outcomes for teens married before conception, perhaps driven by earlier-timed births.

No description available.

In general, an individual commands a salary in return for their contribution to the production process at their place of employment. In the case of a quarterback for a National Football League team, the salary he commands depends on how much the team's owner expects him to contribute to the team and how unique his talents and services are. The salary of the quarterback is negotiated between the quarterback and the team and will vary greatly depending on the relative strengths of each side's bargaining position. The bilateral oligopoly provides a useful way to view how salaries are determined. This thesis uses an econometric model to explore the bilateral oligopoly framework for determining quarterback salaries. Within this framework, there are a set of on-field performance variables (related to the quarterback and the team) and off-field financial variables (related to the team) that are used to negotiate a quarterback's salary. This paper characterizes the quarterback-team relationship by identifying those variables that effect quarterback salaries. / Master of Arts

<p>This dissertation consists of three separate essays on job search and labor market dynamics. In the first essay, “The Impact of Labor Market Conditions on Job Creation: Evidence from Firm Level Data”, I study how much changes in labor market conditions reduce employment fluctuations over the business cycle. Changes in labor market conditions make hiring more expensive during expansions and cheaper during recessions, creating counter-cyclical incentives for job creation. I estimate firm level elasticities of labor demand with respect to changes in labor market conditions, considering two margins: changes in labor market tightness and changes in wages. Using employer-employee matched data from Brazil, I find that all firms are more sensitive to changes in wages rather than labor market tightness, and there is substantial heterogeneity in labor demand elasticity across regions. Based on these results, I demonstrate that changes in labor market conditions reduce the variance of employment growth over the business cycle by 20% in a median region, and this effect is equally driven by changes along each margin. Moreover, I show that the magnitude of the effect of labor market conditions on employment growth can be significantly affected by economic policy. In particular, I document that the rapid growth of the national minimum wages in Brazil in 1997-2010 amplified the impact of the change in labor market conditions during local expansions and diminished this impact during local recessions.</p><p>In the second essay, “A Framework for Estimating Persistence of Local Labor</p><p>Demand Shocks”, I propose a decomposition which allows me to study the persistence of local labor demand shocks. Persistence of labor demand shocks varies across industries, and the incidence of shocks in a region depends on the regional industrial composition. As a result, less diverse regions are more likely to experience deeper shocks, but not necessarily more long lasting shocks. Building on this idea, I propose a decomposition of local labor demand shocks into idiosyncratic location shocks and nationwide industry shocks and estimate the variance and the persistence of these shocks using the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) in 1990-2013.</p><p>In the third essay, “Conditional Choice Probability Estimation of Continuous- Time Job Search Models”, co-authored with Peter Arcidiacono and Arnaud Maurel, we propose a novel, computationally feasible method of estimating non-stationary job search models. Non-stationary job search models arise in many applications, where policy change can be anticipated by the workers. The most prominent example of such policy is the expiration of unemployment benefits. However, estimating these models still poses a considerable computational challenge, because of the need to solve a differential equation numerically at each step of the optimization routine. We overcome this challenge by adopting conditional choice probability methods, widely used in dynamic discrete choice literature, to job search models and show how the hazard rate out of unemployment and the distribution of the accepted wages, which can be estimated in many datasets, can be used to infer the value of unemployment. We demonstrate how to apply our method by analyzing the effect of the unemployment benefit expiration on duration of unemployment using the data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) in 1996-2007.</p> / Dissertation

In this paper we analyze the impact of global imports on regional labor markets, and how such impact translates to changes in voting patterns in the U.S. Presidential elections from 2000 to 2016. We find that imports from different U.S. trading partners influence voting patterns in different ways. In particular, we observe an anti-incumbent effect caused by import competition from OECD countries. Such an effect cannot be observed for imports from low-income countries. There is also evidence that suggests high exposure to import competition tends to drive voters toward the Democratic candidate, who typically proposes better social welfare programs and more protectionist policies. For imports from low-income countries, evidence for such effects is less robust, but still significant. Despite the voters’ earlier alignment toward the Democrats, we observe a significant voter realignment toward the Republican candidate in the 2016 election due to sudden changes in the Republicans’ stance on global trade. Taken together, these results paint a picture of how the voters’ sentiment towards global trade evolves throughout time and varies with regards to different U.S. trading partners.