Working Papers
Ethnic-Occupational Niches: Evidence from the Age of Mass Migration (Job Market Paper) [Draft]
Abstract: Why are some ethnic or immigrant groups vastly over-represented in certain occupations? I posit that these ethnic-occupational niches are driven by immigrants' pre-migration skills, as well as social networks of fellow countrymen in the niched occupation. Turning to the United States during the Age of Mass Migration, I show that between 1850 and 1940, 46% of all immigrants were in niches. The presence and intensity of over-representation varied across nationality, time, and occupation. Digitizing new data on immigrant pre-arrival occupation and merging it to the historical US censuses, I find both skill background and social networks have a significant, positive effect on the occupational choice of newly arrived immigrants. But, the latter dominates the former, and a novel instrument for social networks of one's countrymen in a niched occupation confirms these results and the primacy of social networks in causing niches. By providing a better understanding of what drives niches, my findings inform their consequences for immigration and labor markets today.
Presentations: Harvard (x2), Boston University, William & Mary, ASREC 2024, Chapman IRES Workshop, SEA 2024, SSHA 2024, Yale Economic History Lunch
Poster sessions: NBER SI DAE 2024, EHA 2024
Works in Progress
The Gender of Names (with Katarina Fedorov, Martin Fiszbein and Sam Bazzi) [Slides]
Abstract: Changing gender norms have shaped the US economy over the last two centuries, but assessing their evolution is difficult due to the paucity of data. In this paper, we use first names as a novel proxy of gender norms. Certain names sound pleasing and soft to the ear and are therefore perceived as feminine-sounding (Barry and Harper 1995), and we implement this intuition on hundreds of millions of baby names from the United States spanning more than two centuries. We find that baby names for both sexes have become substantially more feminine-sounding in the last 75 years. Using historical full-count census data and modern survey data, we further validate the correlation between BH scores and gender norms. Notably, we find a strong positive relationship between male BH scores and progressive gender attitudes. Overall, our findings suggest that names can be a valuable tool for measuring gender norms.
Presentations: Harvard, SEA 2024, ASREC 2025
Our Crowd? Identity and Discrimination in Jewish Migration to the U.S. (with Ross Mattheis and Sara Benetti)
Abstract: Integration of immigrants is a key topic in the global economy today. New waves of co-ethnic immigrants both make assimilation less valuable, since the group becomes larger, but also increase the incentive for incumbents to differentiate themselves from recent arrivals when threatened by discrimination from natives. Can frictions between waves of migrants shape the economic choices of incumbents? We answer these questions in the context of two waves of Jewish migrants to the United States—the first predominately German, arriving between 1840 and 1880, and the latter arriving primarily from the Russian Empire between 1880 and WWI—that differed dramatically along cultural dimensions. Taking advantage of records from a Jewish genealogical website, we develop a novel methodology to more accurately identify Jews in the US census. Then, we digitize and geolocate data on Jewish institutions across the US between 1890 and 1927. Combining these sources, the evolution of Jewish life after the arrival of the second wave of migrants can be assessed. Preliminary results suggest incumbents increasingly Americanizing their names while decreasing other margins of assimilation.
Presentations: NBER Linking Historical Data Sources for Small Populations
Networks and Individualism (with Martin Fiszbein)
Abstract: Do ideas diffuse more readily in societies with certain network topologies? Using a tractable model, we compare two societies-- one individualistic and one collectivist. Each society is composed of multiple groups. The two societies are identical except for one aspect, motivated by the fact that individualistic cultures have higher out-group trust: agents in the collectivist society are more homophilous relative to their individualist counterparts, having a higher share of connections from their in-group. If the collectivist society has high enough homophily, ideas fail to flow across groups. We propose this lack of diffusion, combined with a notion of recombinant innovation across groups, can help explain why individualistic societies have higher long-run growth rates.