This dissertation contains three chapters that examine the effect of price in higher education. The first chapter considers the effect of community college tuition on college enrollment using a natural experiment in Texas where discounts for community college tuition were expanded over time and across geography. Additionally, the long-term effects of community college are examined including transfer to universities and graduation with a bachelor's degree. This chapter uses Texas administrative data from 1994-2012 on the universe of high school graduates and their college enrollment and graduation. For high school graduates, community college enrollment in the first year after high school increased by 7.1 percentage points for a \$1,000 decrease in tuition. Lower tuition also increased transfer from community colleges to universities. There is also marginally statistically significant evidence that attending a community college increased the probability of earning a bachelors degree within eight years of high school graduation by 23 percentage points. The second chapter examines whether students respond to immediate financial incentives when choosing their college major. From 2006-07 to 2010-11, low-income students in technical or foreign language majors could receive up to \$8,000 in Federal Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grants. Since income-eligibility was determined using a strict threshold, this chapter determines the causal impact of the grant on student major with a regression discontinuity design. Using administrative data from public universities in Texas, it is estimated that income-eligible students were 3.2 percentage points more likely than their ineligible peers to major in targeted fields. Brigham Young University had a larger impact of 10.1 percentage points. The third chapter considers the effect of financial aid arising from students being declared financially independent on educational outcomes including reenrollment, credits attempted, and graduation. Students who are 24 at the end of the calender year cannot be declared dependent while students who are 23 at the end of the year can be. This sharp change in eligibility is leveraged to compare dependent students to independent students in a regression discontinuity framework. The analysis uses administrative data from from all public universities and colleges in Texas from 2003-04 to 2013-14. Financial independence is associated with modest changes in educational outcomes. / text

This dissertation consists of three independent chapters. Chapter 1 examines the determinants and welfare implications of the increased geographic of workers by skill from 1980 to 2000. I estimate a structural spatial equilibrium model of local labor demand, housing supply, labor supply, and amenity levels. The estimates indicate that cross-city changes in firms' demands for high and low skill labor were the underlying forces driving the increase in geographic skill sorting. I find that the combined effects of changes in cities' wages, rents, and endogenous amenities increased well-being inequality between high school and college graduates by a significantly larger amount than would be suggested by the increase in the college wage gap alone. / Economics

Recent literature finds that in OECD countries the cross- country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labor force participation rate has changed from negative till the mid-1980s to positive afterwards. In sharp contrast, other studies show that this negative relationship continues to exist, however the magnitude of the effect is lower. In this paper I look at a panel of 23 OECD aggregate fertility and labor market data from 1965 – 2013 and account for country as well as year fixed effects. My findings document that there exists a negative relationship between fertility and female employment for the years 1965 – 1985, as there existed a high level of incompatibility between mother and worker roles at that time. After this time period no relationship between fertility and employment exists. The presence of a number of other country and year specific factors affects the level of labor force participation and fertility decisions of a woman. When accounted for, the cross-country time-series association between fertility and female employment seems to fade away and does not exist any longer after the mid-1980s.

This thesis contains four essays. The first paper, "Real or Evasion Responses to the Wealth Tax? Theory and Evidence from Sweden", addresses the behavioral effects of an annual wealth tax. I use Swedish tax records over the period 1999-2006 and two sources of variation in the tax rate to estimate the elasticity of taxable net wealth at about 0.3. I decompose the effects into reporting and savings responses and find that an increase in the tax is likely to stimulate evasion. Using military enlistment records on cognitive ability, I find that high-skilled individuals respond more to the tax. The second paper, "Job Displacement and Labor Market Outcomes by Skill Level", uses previously unexplored administrative data on all displaced workers in Sweden 2002-2004 to estimate how the incidence and effects of job loss depend on cognitive and noncognitive skills. I find that workers with low ability are significantly more likely to be displaced but the recovery rates upon job loss show no significant differences across skill groups. The third paper, "Complementary Roles of Connections and Performance in Political Selection in China", analyzes who becomes a top politician in China. It focuses on the promotions of provincial leaders and estimates how performance - measured by provincial economic growth – and connections with top politicians – measured by having worked together in the past – influence promotions. Using data for the period 1993-2009, we find a positive correlation between promotion and growth that is stronger for connected leaders. The fourth paper, "Does the Demand for Redistribution Rise or Fall with Cognitive Ability?", uses data from enlistment and a tailor-made survey that elicits redistributional preferences. On a scale of 0 to 100 percent redistribution, a one standard deviation increase in cognitive ability lowers demand by 6 percentage points, also when controlling for past, current and future expected income.

<p> This dissertation is mainly concerned with the distribution of between individuals in the economy. </p><p> The first chapter (Chapter 1) examines the various problems with Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc) as a measure of economic welfare. The chapter proposes the Vast Majority Income (VMI) as a new measure of economic welfare that combines both national income and income distribution in a single, intuitive measure. The VMI measures the average income per capita of the vast majority of the population, defined as the first 80 percent of the population within the income distribution. </p><p> Chapter 2 proposes a model of the labor market that has a statistical equilibrium wage rather than a single point equilibrium wage as in the standard microeconomic model of wage equalization. Using heterogeneous agent-based modeling techniques, the chapter presents a labor market model where wages equalize around an exponential distribution of wages. Compared to previous models of statistical equilibrium in economics, this model does not require a fixed average wage levels. </p><p> Chapter 3 proposes a measure of inclusive growth that is based on the concept and methodology of the VMI discussed in Chapter 1. The growth rate of the VMI across time is proposed as a measure of the inclusivity of growth. We then compare and contrast the growth rate of the VMI to the growth rate of GDP per capita, economic growth. The Chapter shows how the last thirty years were mostly a period of non-inclusive growth in the majority of developing economies. Growth in developing nations was accompanied by a worsening of the equality of income distribution and as a result the growth in the incomes of the vast majority (the bottom 80% of income earners) was 1% less than the growth in GDP per capita for the population as a whole in developing countries. </p>

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2007. / "Publication number AAT 3281714"

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-72).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Iowa State University, 2005. / (UnM)AAI3200409. Major Professor: Brent Kreider. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0272.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Economics, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 13, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4784. Adviser: Gerhard Glomm.

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2006 / "Publication number AAT 3266282."