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The Long Run Impacts of Court-Ordered Desegregation
April 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-11
Court ordered desegregation plans were implemented in hundreds of US school districts nationwide from the 1960s through the 1980s, and were arguably the most substantive national attempt to improve educational access for African American children in modern American history. Using large Census samples that are linked to Social Security records containing county of birth, we implement event studies that estimate the long run effects of exposure to desegregation orders on human capital and labor market outcomes. We find that African Americans who were relatively young when a desegregation order was implemented in their county of birth, and therefore had more exposure to integrated schools, experienced large improvements in adult human capital and labor market outcomes relative to Blacks who were older when a court order was locally implemented. There are no comparable changes in outcomes among whites in counties undergoing an order, or among Blacks who were beyond school ages when a local order was implemented. These effects are strongly concentrated in the South, with largely null findings in other regions. Our data and methodology provide the most comprehensive national assessment to date on the impacts of court ordered desegregation, and strongly indicate that these policies were in fact highly effective at improving the long run socioeconomic outcomes of many Black students.
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Mortality in a Multi-State Cohort of Former State Prisoners, 2010-2015
February 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-06
Previous studies report that individuals who have been imprisoned have higher mortality rates than their demographic counterparts in the general population, particularly non-Hispanic white former prisoners. Most of these studies have been based on a single state's prison system, and the extent to which their findings can be generalized has not been established. In this study we explore the role that race/Hispanic origin, other demographic characteristics, and custodial/ criminal history factors have on post-release mortality, including on the timing of deaths. We also assess whether conditional release to community supervision or reimprisonment may explain the higher post-release mortality found among non-Hispanic whites. In the second part of the analysis, we estimate standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) by sex, age group, and race/Hispanic origin using as reference the U.S. general population. The data come from state prison releases from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP). The NCRP records were linked to the Census Numident to identify deaths occurring within five years from prison release. We also linked NCRP records to previous decennial censuses and survey responses to obtain self-reported race and Hispanic origin if available. We found that non-Hispanic white former prisoners were more likely to die within five years after prison release and more likely to die in the initial weeks after release compared to racial minorities and Hispanics. Reimprisonment, age at release, and a history of multiple prison terms had a similar influence on the odds of dying across all race/Hispanic origin groups. Other factors, such as the type of release and the duration of the last term in prison, were associated with higher risks of mortality for some groups but not for others.
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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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Leapfrogging the Melting Pot? European Immigrants' Intergenerational Mobility Across the 20th Century
August 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-20
During the early twentieth century, industrial-era European immigrants entered the United States with lower levels of education than the U.S. average. However, empirical research has yielded unclear and inconsistent evidence about the extent and pace of their integration, leaving openings for arguments that contest the narrative that these groups experienced rapid integration and instead assert that educational deficits among lower-status groups persisted across multiple generations. Here, we advance another argument, that European immigrants may have 'leapfrogged' or exceeded U.S.-born non-Hispanic white attainment by the third generation. To assess these ideas, we reconstituted three-generation families by linking individuals across the 1940 Census, years 1973, 1979, 1981-90 of the Current Population Survey, the 2000 Census, and years 2001-2017 of the American Community Survey. Results show that most European immigrant groups not only caught up with U.S.-born whites by the second generation, but surpassed them, and this advantage further increased in the third generation. This research provides a new understanding of the time to integration for 20th century European immigrant groups by showing that they integrated at a faster pace than previously thought, indicative of a process of accelerated upward mobility.
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Whose Job Is It Anyway? Co-Ethnic Hiring in New U.S. Ventures
March 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-05
We explore co-ethnic hiring among new ventures using U.S. administrative data. Co-ethnic hiring is ubiquitous among immigrant groups, averaging about 22.5% and ranging from 2% to 40%. Co-ethnic hiring grows with the size of the local ethnic workforce, greater linguistic distance to English, lower cultural/genetic similarity to U.S. natives, and in harsher policy environments for immigrants. Co ethnic hiring is remarkably persistent for ventures and for individuals. Co-ethnic hiring is associated with greater venture survival and growth when thick local ethnic employment surrounds the business. Our results are consistent with a blend of hiring due to information advantages within ethnic groups with some taste-based hiring.
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What Caused Racial Disparities in Particulate Exposure to Fall? New Evidence from the Clean Air Act and Satellite-Based Measures of Air Quality
January 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-02
Racial differences in exposure to ambient air pollution have declined significantly in the United States over the past 20 years. This project links restricted-access Census Bureau microdata to newly available, spatially continuous high resolution measures of ambient particulate pollution (PM2.5) to examine the underlying causes and consequences of differences in black-white pollution exposures. We begin by decomposing differences in pollution exposure into components explained by observable population characteristics (e.g., income) versus those that remain unexplained. We then use quantile regression methods to show that a significant portion of the 'unexplained' convergence in black-white pollution exposure can be attributed to differential impacts of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in non-Hispanic African American and non-Hispanic white communities. Areas with larger black populations saw greater CAA-related declines in PM2.5 exposure. We show that the CAA has been the single largest contributor to racial convergence in PM2.5 pollution exposure in the U.S. since 2000 accounting for over 60 percent of the reduction.
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Predicting the Effect of Adding a Citizenship Question to the 2020 Census
June 2019
Working Paper Number:
CES-19-18
The addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census could affect the self-response rate, a key driver of the cost and quality of a census. We find that citizenship question response patterns in the American Community Survey (ACS) suggest that it is a sensitive question when asked about administrative record noncitizens but not when asked about administrative record citizens. ACS respondents who were administrative record noncitizens in 2017 frequently choose to skip the question or answer that the person is a citizen. We predict the effect on self-response to the entire survey by comparing mail response rates in the 2010 ACS, which included a citizenship question, with those of the 2010 census, which did not have a citizenship question, among households in both surveys. We compare the actual ACS-census difference in response rates for households that may contain noncitizens (more sensitive to the question) with the difference for households containing only U.S. citizens. We estimate that the addition of a citizenship question will have an 8.0 percentage point larger effect on self-response rates in households that may have noncitizens relative to those with only U.S. citizens. Assuming that the citizenship question does not affect unit self-response in all-citizen households and applying the 8.0 percentage point drop to the 28.1 % of housing units potentially having at least one noncitizen would predict an overall 2.2 percentage point drop in self-response in the 2020 census, increasing costs and reducing the quality of the population count.
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IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATION IN THE U.S. HIGH-TECH SECTOR
February 2019
Working Paper Number:
CES-19-06
We estimate differences in innovation behavior between foreign versus U.S.-born entrepreneurs in high-tech industries. Our data come from the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, a random sample of firms with detailed information on owner characteristics and innovation activities. We find uniformly higher rates of innovation in immigrant-owned firms for 15 of 16 different innovation measures; the only exception is for copyright/trademark. The immigrant advantage holds for older firms as well as for recent start-ups and for every level of the entrepreneur's education. The size of the estimated immigrant-native differences in product and process innovation activities rises with detailed controls for demographic and human capital characteristics but falls for R&D and patenting. Controlling for finance, motivations, and industry reduces all coefficients, but for most measures and specifications immigrants are estimated to have a sizable advantage in innovation.
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Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D): Using Administrative and Census Records Data in Business Statistics
January 2019
Working Paper Number:
CES-19-01
The quinquennial Survey of Business Owners or SBO provided the only comprehensive source of information in the United States on employer and nonemployer businesses by the sex, race, ethnicity and veteran status of the business owners. The annual Nonemployer Statistics series (NES) provides establishment counts and receipts for nonemployers but contains no demographic information on the business owners. With the transition of the employer component of the SBO to the Annual Business Survey, the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics series or NES-D represents the continuation of demographics estimates for nonemployer businesses. NES-D will leverage existing administrative and census records to assign demographic characteristics to the universe of approximately 24 million nonemployer businesses (as of 2015). Demographic characteristics include key demographics measured by the SBO (sex, race, Hispanic origin and veteran status) as well as other demographics (age, place of birth and citizenship status) collected but not imputed by the SBO if missing. A spectrum of administrative and census data sources will provide the nonemployer universe and demographics information. Specifically, the nonemployer universe originates in the Business Register; the Census Numident will provide sex, age, place of birth and citizenship status; race and Hispanic origin information will be obtained from multiple years of the decennial census and the American Community Survey; and the Department of Veteran Affairs will provide administrative records data on veteran status.
The use of blended data in this manner will make possible the production of NES-D, an annual series that will become the only source of detailed and comprehensive statistics on the scope, nature and activities of U.S. businesses with no paid employment by the demographic characteristics of the business owner. Using the 2015 vintage of nonemployers, initial results indicate that demographic information is available for the overwhelming majority of the universe of nonemployers. For instance, information on sex, age, place of birth and citizenship status is available for over 95 percent of the 24 million nonemployers while race and Hispanic origin are available for about 90 percent of them. These results exclude owners of C-corporations, which represent only 2 percent of nonemployer firms. Among other things, future work will entail imputation of missing demographics information (including that of C-corporations), testing the longitudinal consistency of the estimates, and expanding the set of characteristics beyond the demographics mentioned above. Without added respondent burden and at lower imputation rates and costs, NES-D will meet the needs of stakeholders as well as the economy as a whole by providing reliable estimates at a higher frequency (annual vs. every 5 years) and with a more timely dissemination schedule than the SBO.
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Factors that Influence Change in Hispanic Identification: Evidence from Linked Decennial Census and American Community Survey Data
October 2018
Working Paper Number:
CES-18-45
This study explores patterns of ethnic boundary crossing as evidenced by changes in Hispanic origin responses across decennial census and survey data. We identify socioeconomic, cultural, and demographic factors associated with Hispanic response change. In addition, we assess whether changes in the Hispanic origin question between the 2000 and 2010 censuses influenced changes in Hispanic reporting. We use a unique large dataset that links a person's unedited responses to the Hispanic origin question across Census 2000, the 2010 Census and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey five-year file. We find that most of the individuals in the sample identified consistently as Hispanic regardless of changes in the wording of the Hispanic origin question. Individuals who changed in or out of a Hispanic identification, as well as those who consistently identified as non-Hispanic (of Hispanic ancestry), differed in socioeconomic and cultural characteristics from individuals who consistently reported as Hispanic. The likelihood of changing their Hispanic origin response is higher among U.S.-born individuals, those reporting mixed Hispanic and non-Hispanic ancestries, those who speak only English at home, and those who live in tracts that are predominantly non-Hispanic. Racial identification and detailed Hispanic background also influence changes in Hispanic origin responses. Finally, changes in mode and relationship to the reference person in the household are associated with changes in Hispanic origin responses, suggesting that data collection elements also can influence Hispanic origin response change.
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