Human capital theory predicts that individuals acquire less schooling when the returns to schooling are small. To test this theory, the authors study the effect of the Appalachian coal boom on high school enrollments. During the 1970s, a boom in the coal industry increased the earnings of high...

While the economic effects of immigration have recently become topics of debate in the public arena, the debate is a long-standing one in the economics literature. The labor market effects of immigration have long been of interest to economists. Whereas theory predicts large negative effects on...

Consumption is perhaps the most important economic behavior of human beings. To it goes the lion's share of the country's annual product. This study is part of the ongoing efforts to give a reasonable description of how various factors affect household consumption decision. Those factors include...

This dissertation consists of two essays. In the first essay I show that there are substantial differences in unemployment durations and reemployment outcomes for workers coming from different occupations. I argue that this variation can be explained by differences in occupational employment...

It is well established that average wages differ across local labor markets. Researchers have found that this is partially explained by differences of worker ability, as reflected in observable dimensions of worker skill, such as education and labor market experience. However, the classical...

We explore the changes in the wage gap of caste and gender groups in India. Traditional Hindu society divided people into social classes based on the caste system. The lowest of the castes have traditionally been economically disadvantaged. Women in India have typically been restricted to the...

This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long-Form data, to study the demographic processes underlying the gentrification of low income urban neighborhoods during the 1990’s. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined...

This paper considers the use of statistical profiling to allocate persons to alternative options within government programs, or to participation or non-participation in programs. Profiling has been used in the United States to allocate unemployment insurance (UI) claimants to reemployment...

My dissertation is composed of two essays in Labor Economics. The first chapter examines how employers learn about workers' unobserved productivity when learning is asymmetric between incumbent and outside firms. I develop an asymmetric employer learning model in which endogenous job mobility is...

In the first chapter I study racial differences in the impact of education on labor income volatility. Using panel data on black and white males from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics I find that education reduces labor income volatility more for blacks than for whites. The central...