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Place Based Economic Development and Tribal Casinos
April 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-24
Tribal lands in the U.S. have historically experienced some of the worst economic conditions in the nation. We review some existing research on the effect of American Indian tribal casinos on various measures of local economic development. This is an industry that began in the early 1990s and currently generates more than $40 billion annually. We also review the state of the literature on the effects of casino operations on communities in or adjacent to tribal areas. Using a new dataset linking individual and enterprise-level data longitudinally, this study examines the industry- and location-specific impacts of tribal casino operations. We focus in particular on the employment of American Indians. We document positive flows from unemployment and non-casino geographies to work in sectors related to casino operations. Tribal casinos differ from other standard place-based economic development projects in that they are focused on a single industry; we discuss these differences and note that some of the positive spillover effects may be similar to other, more standard place-based policies. Finally, we discuss additional and open-ended questions for future research on this topic.
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Revisiting Methods to Assign Responses when Race and Hispanic Origin Reporting are Discrepant Across Administrative Records and Third Party Sources
May 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-26
The Best Race and Ethnicity Administrative Records Composite file ('Best Race file') is an composite file which combines Census, federal, and Third Party Data (TPD) sources and applies business rules to assign race and ethnicity values to person records. The first version of the Best Race administrative records composite was first constructed in 2015 and subsequently updated each year to include more recent vintages, when available, of the data sources originally included in the composite file. Where updates were available for data sources, the most recent information for persons was retained, and the business rules were reapplied to assign a single race and single Hispanic origin value to each person record. The majority of person records on the Best Race file have consistent race and ethnicity information across data sources. Where there are discrepancies in responses across data sources, we apply a series of business rules to assign a single race and ethnicity to each record. To improve the quality of the Best Race administrative records composite, we have begun revising the business rules which were developed several years ago. This paper discusses the original business rules as well as the implemented changes and their impact on the composite file.
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More than Chance: The Local Labor Market Effects of Tribal Gaming
April 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-22
Casino-style gaming is an important economic development strategy for many American Indian tribes throughout the United States. Using confidential Census microdata and a database
of tribal government-owned casinos, I examine the local labor market effects of tribal gaming on different markets, over different time horizons, and for different subgroups. I find that tribal gaming is responsible for sustained improvements in employment and wages on reservations and that American Indians benefit the most. I also find that tribal gaming increases the average rental price of housing but by an amount smaller than the average wage increase, suggesting net local benefits.
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Earnings Inequality and Immobility for Hispanics and Asians: An Examination of Variation Across Subgroups
September 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-30
Our analysis provides the rst disaggregated examination of earnings inequality and immobility within the Hispanic ethnic group and the Asian race group in the U.S. over the period of 2005-2015. Our analysis differentiates between long-term immigrant and native-born Hispanics and Asians relative to recent immigrants to the U.S. (post 2005) and new labor market entrants. Our results show that for the Asian and Hispanic population aged 18-45, earnings inequality is constant or slightly decreasing for the long-term immigrant and native-born populations. However, including new labor market entrants and recent immigrants to the U.S. contributes significantly to the earnings inequality for these groups at both the aggregate and disaggregated race or ethnic group levels. These findings have important implications for the measurement of inequality for racial and ethnic groups that have higher proportions of new immigrants and new labor market entrants in the U.S.
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Business Dynamics on American Indian Reservations: Evidence from Longitudinal Datasets
November 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-38
We use confidential US Census Bureau data to analyze the difference in business establishment dynamics by geographic location on or off of American Indian reservations over the period of the Great Recession, and subsequent recovery (2007-2016). We geocoded U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Business Database, a dataset with records of all employer business establishments in the U.S. for location in an American Indian Reservation and used it to examine whether there are differences in business establishment survival rates over time by virtue of their location. We find that business establishments located on American Indian reservations have higher survival rates than establishments located in comparable counties. These results are particularly strong for the education, arts and entertainment, wholesale and retail, and public administration industries. While we are not fully able to explain this result, it is consistent with the business establishments being positively selected with respect to survival given the large obstacles necessary to start a business on a reservation in the first place. Alternatively, there may be certain safeguards in a reservation economy that protect business establishments from external economic shocks.
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Reservation Nonemployer and Employer Establishments: Data from U.S. Census Longitudinal Business Databases
December 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-50
The presence of businesses on American Indian reservations has been difficult to analyze due to limited data. Akee, Mykerezi, and Todd (AMT; 2017) geocoded confidential data from the U.S. Census Longitudinal Business Database to identify whether employer establishments were located on or off American Indian reservations and then compared federally recognized reservations and nearby county areas with respect to their per capita number of employers and jobs. We use their methods and the U.S. Census Integrated Longitudinal Business Database to develop parallel results for nonemployer establishments and for the combination of employer and nonemployer establishments. Similar to AMT's findings, we find that reservations and nearby county areas have a similar sectoral distribution of nonemployer and nonemployer-plus-employer establishments, but reservations have significantly fewer of them in nearly all sectors, especially when the area population is below 15,000. By contrast to AMT, the average size of reservation nonemployer establishments, as measured by revenue (instead of the jobs measure AMT used for employers), is smaller than the size of nonemployers in nearby county areas, and this is true in most industries as well. The most significant exception is in the retail sector. Geographic and demographic factors, such as population density and per capita income, statistically account for only a small portion of these differences. However, when we assume that nonemployer establishments create the equivalent of one job and use combined employer-plus-nonemployer jobs to measure establishment size, the employer job numbers dominate and we parallel AMT's finding that, due to large job counts in the Arts/Entertainment/Recreation and Public Administration sectors, reservations on average have slightly more jobs per resident than nearby county areas.
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Reporting of Indian Health Service Coverage in the American Community Survey
May 2018
Working Paper Number:
carra-2018-04
Response error in surveys affects the quality of data which are relied on for numerous research and policy purposes. We use linked survey and administrative records data to examine reporting of a particular item in the American Community Survey (ACS) - health coverage among American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs) through the Indian Health Service (IHS). We compare responses to the IHS portion of the 2014 ACS health insurance question to whether or not individuals are in the 2014 IHS Patient Registration data. We evaluate the extent to which individuals misreport their IHS coverage in the ACS as well as the characteristics associated with misreporting. We also assess whether the ACS estimates of AIANs with IHS coverage represent an undercount. Our results will be of interest to researchers who rely on survey responses in general and specifically the ACS health insurance question. Moreover, our analysis contributes to the literature on using administrative records to measure components of survey error.
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Reservation Employer Establishments: Data from the U.S. Census Longitudinal Business Database
January 2017
Working Paper Number:
CES-17-57
The presence of employers and jobs on American Indian reservations has been difficult to analyze due to limited data. We are the first to geocode confidential data on employer establishments from the U.S. Census Longitudinal Business Database to identify location on or off American Indian reservations. We identify the per capita establishment count and jobs in reservation-based employer establishments for most federally recognized reservations. Comparisons to nearby non-reservation areas in the lower 48 states across 18 industries reveal that reservations have a similar sectoral distribution of employer establishments but have significantly fewer of them in nearly all sectors, especially when the area population is below 15,000 (as it is on the vast majority of reservations and for the majority of the reservation population). By contrast, the total number of jobs provided by reservation establishments is, on average, at par with or somewhat higher than in nearby county areas but is concentrated among casino-related and government employers. An implication is that average job numbers per establishment are higher in these sectors on reservations, including those with populations below 15,000, while the remaining industries are typically sparser within reservations (in firm count and jobs per capita). Geographic and demographic factors, such as population density and per capita income, statistically account for some but not all of these differences.
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Assimilation and Coverage of the
Foreign-Born Population in Administrative Records
April 2015
Working Paper Number:
carra-2015-02
The U.S. Census Bureau is researching ways to incorporate administrative data in decennial census and survey operations. Critical to this work is an understanding of the coverage of the population by administrative records. Using federal and third party administrative data linked to the American Community Survey (ACS), we evaluate the extent to which administrative records provide data on foreign-born individuals in the ACS and employ multinomial logistic regression techniques to evaluate characteristics of those who are in administrative records relative to those who are not. We find that overall, administrative records provide high coverage of foreign-born individuals in our sample for whom a match can be determined. The odds of being in administrative records are found to be tied to the processes of immigrant assimilation - naturalization, higher English proficiency, educational attainment, and full-time employment are associated with greater odds of being in administrative records. These findings suggest that as immigrants adapt and integrate into U.S. society, they are more likely to be involved in government and commercial processes and programs for which we are including data. We further explore administrative records coverage for the two largest race/ethnic groups in our sample - Hispanic and non-Hispanic single-race Asian foreign born, finding again that characteristics related to assimilation are associated with administrative records coverage for both groups. However, we observe that neighborhood context impacts Hispanics and Asians differently.
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Dynamics of Race: Joining, Leaving, and Staying in the American Indian/Alaska Native Race Category between 2000 and 2010
August 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-10
Each census for decades has seen the American Indian and Alaska Native population increase substantially more than expected. Changes in racial reporting seem to play an important role in the observed net increases, though research has been hampered by data limitations. We address previously unanswerable questions about race response change among American Indian and Alaska Natives (hereafter 'American Indians') using uniquely-suited (but not nationally representative) linked data from the 2000 and 2010 decennial censuses (N = 3.1 million) and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey (N = 188,131). To what extent do people change responses to include or exclude American Indian? How are people who change responses similar to or different from those who do not? How are people who join a group similar to or different from those who leave it? We find considerable race response change by people in our data, especially by multiple-race and/or Hispanic American Indians. This turnover is hidden in cross-sectional comparisons because people joining the group are similar in number and characteristics to those who leave the group. People in our data who changed their race response to add or drop American Indian differ from those who kept the same race response in 2000 and 2010 and from those who moved between a single-race and multiple-race American Indian response. Those who consistently reported American Indian (including those who added or dropped another race response) were relatively likely to report a tribe, live in an American Indian area, report American Indian ancestry, and live in the West. There are significant differences between those who joined and those who left a specific American Indian response group, but poor model fit indicates general similarity between joiners and leavers. Response changes should be considered when conceptualizing and operationalizing 'the American Indian and Alaska Native population.'
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