-
Neighborhood Revitalization and Residential Sorting
March 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-12
The HOPE VI Revitalization program sought to transform high-poverty neighborhoods into mixed-income communities through the demolition of public housing projects and the construction of new housing. We use longitudinal administrative data to investigate how the program affected both neighborhoods and individual residential outcomes. In line with the stated objectives, we find that the program reduced poverty rates in targeted neighborhoods and enabled subsidized renters to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods, on average. The primary beneficiaries were not the original neighborhood residents, most of whom moved away. Instead, subsidized renters who moved into the neighborhoods after an award experienced the largest reductions in neighborhood poverty. The program reduced the stock of public housing in targeted neighborhoods but expanded access to housing vouchers in other, lower-poverty neighborhoods. Spillover effects on the poverty rates of other neighborhoods were small and dispersed throughout the city. Our estimates imply that cities that revitalized half of their public housing stock reduced the average neighborhood poverty rate among all subsidized renters by 4.1 percentage points.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Are Immigrants More Innovative? Evidence from Entrepreneurs
November 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-56
We evaluate the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs to innovation in the U.S. using linked survey-administrative data on 199,000 firms with a rich set of innovation measures and other firm and owner characteristics. We find that not only are immigrants more likely than natives to own businesses, but on average their firms display more innovation activities and outcomes. Immigrant owned firms are particularly more likely to create completely new products, improve previous products, use new processes, and engage in both basic and applied R&D, and their efforts are reflected in substantially higher levels of patents and productivity. Immigrant owners are slightly less likely than natives to imitate products of others and to hire more employees. Delving into potential explanations of the immigrant-native differences, we study other characteristics of entrepreneurs, access to finance, choice of industry, immigrant self-selection, and effects of diversity. We find that the immigrant innovation advantage is robust to controlling for detailed characteristics of firms and owners, it holds in both high-tech and non-high-tech industries and, with the exception of productivity, it tends to be even stronger in firms owned by diverse immigrant-native teams and by diverse immigrants from different countries. The evidence from nearly all measures that immigrants tend to operate more innovative and productive firms, together with the higher share of business ownership by immigrants, implies large contributions to U.S. innovation and growth.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Diversity and Labor Market Outcomes in the Economics Profession
July 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-26
While the lack of gender and racial diversity in economics in academia (for students and professors) is well-established, less is known about the overall placement and earnings of economists by gender and race. Understanding demand-side factors is important, as improvements in the supply side by diversifying the pipeline alone may not be enough to improve equity in the profession. Using the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) linked to Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) jobs data, we examine placements and earnings for economists working in the U.S. after receiving a PhD by gender and race. We find enormous dispersion in pay for economists within and across sectors that grows over time. Female PhD economists earn about 12 percent less than their male colleagues on average; Black PhD economists earn about 15 percent less than their white counterparts on average; and overall underrepresented minority PhD economists earn about 8 percent less than their white counterparts. These pay disparities are attenuated in some sectors and when controlling for rank of PhD granting institution and employer.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Import Competition and Firms' Internal Networks
September 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-28
Using administrative data on U.S. multisector firms, we document a cross-sectoral propagation of the import competition from China ('China shock') through firms' internal networks: Employment of an establishment in a given industry is negatively affected by China shock that hits establishments in other industries within the same firm. This indirect propagation channel impacts both manufacturing and non-manufacturing establishments, and it operates primarily through the establishment exit. We explore a range of explanations for our findings, highlighting the role of within-firm trade across sectors, scope of production, and establishment size. At the sectoral aggregate level, China shock that propagates through firms' internal networks has a sizable impact on industry-level employment dynamics.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
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.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Business-Level Expectations and Uncertainty
December 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-41
The Census Bureau's 2015 Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS) utilized innovative methodology to collect five-point forecast distributions over own future shipments, employment, and capital and materials expenditures for 35,000 U.S. manufacturing plants. First and second moments of these plant-level forecast distributions covary strongly with first and second moments, respectively, of historical outcomes. The first moment of the distribution provides a measure of business' expectations for future outcomes, while the second moment provides a measure of business' subjective uncertainty over those outcomes. This subjective uncertainty measure correlates positively with financial risk measures. Drawing on the Annual Survey of Manufactures and the Census of Manufactures for the corresponding realizations, we find that subjective expectations are highly predictive of actual outcomes and, in fact, more predictive than statistical models fit to historical data. When respondents express greater subjective uncertainty about future outcomes at their plants, their forecasts are less accurate. However, managers supply overly precise forecast distributions in that implied confidence intervals for sales growth rates are much narrower than the distribution of actual outcomes. Finally, we develop evidence that greater use of predictive computing and structured management practices at the plant and a more decentralized decision-making process (across plants in the same firm) are associated with better forecast accuracy.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
The Children of HOPE VI Demolitions: National Evidence on Labor Market Outcomes
November 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-39
We combine national administrative data on earnings and participation in subsidized housing to study how the demolition of 160 public housing projects'funded by the HOPE VI program'affected the adult labor market outcomes for 18,500 children. Our empirical strategy compares children exposed to the program to children drawn from thousands of non-demolished projects, adjusting for observable differences using a flexible estimator that combines features of matching and regression. We find that children who resided in HOPE VI projects earn 14% more at age 26 relative to children in comparable non-HOPE VI projects. These earnings gains are strongest for demolitions in large cities, particularly in neighborhoods with higher pre-demolition poverty rates and lower pre-demolition job accessibility. There is no evidence that the labor market gains are driven by improvements in household or neighborhood environments that promote human capital development in children. Rather, subsequent improvements in job accessibility represent a likely pathway for the results.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Identifying U.S. Merchandise Traders: Integrating Customs Transactions with Business Administrative Data
September 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-28
This paper describes the construction of the Longitudinal Firm Trade Transactions Database (LFTTD) enabling the identification of merchandise traders - exporters and importers - in the U.S. Census Bureau's Business Register (BR). The LFTTD links merchandise export and import transactions from customs declaration forms to the BR beginning in 1992 through the present. We employ a combination of deterministic and probabilistic matching algorithms to assign a unique firm identifier in the BR to a merchandise export or import transaction record. On average, we match 89 percent of export and import values to a firm identifier. In 1992, we match 79 (88) percent of export (import) value; in 2017, we match 92 (96) percent of export (import) value. Trade transactions in year t are matched to years between 1976 and t+1 of the BR. On average, 94 percent of the trade value matches to a firm in year t of the BR. The LFTTD provides the most comprehensive identification of and the foundation for the analysis of goods trading firms in the U.S. economy.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Family-Leave Mandates and Female Labor at U.S. Firms: Evidence from a Trade Shock
September 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-25
We study the role of family-leave mandates in shaping the gender composition at U.S. firms that experience a negative demand shock. In a regression discontinuity framework, we compare firms mandated to provide job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and firms that are exempt from the law (non-FMLA) following the post-2001 surge in Chinese imports. Using confidential microdata on matched employers and employees in the U.S. non-farm private sector, we find that between 2000 and 2003, an increase in import competition decreases the share of female workers at FMLA compared to non-FMLA firms. The negative differential effect is driven by female workers in prime childbearing years, with less than college education, and is strongest at firms with all male managers. We find similar patterns in changes in the female share of earnings and promotions. These results suggest that, when traditional gender norms prevail, adverse shocks may exacerbate gender inequalities in the presence of job-protected leave mandates.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
MANAGING TRADE: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA AND THE US
May 2019
Working Paper Number:
CES-19-15
We present a heterogeneous-firm model in which management ability increases both production efficiency and product quality. Combining six micro-datasets on management practices, production and trade in Chinese and American firms, we find broad support for the model's predictions. First, better managed firms are more likely to export, sell more products to more destination countries, and earn higher export revenues and profits. Second, better managed exporters have higher prices, higher quality, and lower quality-adjusted prices. Finally, they also use a wider range of inputs, higher quality and more expensive inputs, and imported inputs from more advanced countries. The structural estimates indicate that management is important for improving production efficiency and product quality in both countries, but it matters more in China than in the US, especially for product quality. Panel analysis for the US and a randomized control trial in India suggest that management exerts causal effects on product quality, production efficiency, and exports. Poor management practices may thus hinder trade and growth, especially in developing countries.
View Full
Paper PDF
