Publications
(Forthcoming, Journal of Economic History)
Abstract:
Using linked Census Tree records and archival sources, I explore the roles of race and gender in migrant selection and sorting during the exodus of single young women and men from U.S. Southern farms from 1900-1940. Female migration rates, influenced by changes in farm men’s marriageability, rose during the farm crisis of 1920-1940 and exceeded men’s by 1940. On- and off-farm discrimination by race and gender drove differences in migrant characteristics: out-of-South Black female migrants, but not within-South, were positively selected on education and family resources while White women were positively selected across both destinations.
A previous version of this paper appeared under the title: "The Farm Woman's Problems": Farm Crisis in the U.S. South and Migration to the City, 1920-1940 (last updated: Oct. 2021)
Working Papers
The Privacy-Protected Environmental Impacts Frame (last updated: December 2024)
with John Voorheis, Jonathan Colmer, Kendall Houghton, Eva Lyubich, Mary Munro, and Cameron Scalera
Abstract:
This paper introduces the Gridded Environmental Impacts Frame (Gridded EIF), a novel privacyprotected dataset derived from the U.S. Census Bureau’s confidential Environmental Impacts Frame (EIF) microdata infrastructure. The EIF combines comprehensive administrative records and survey data on the U.S. population with high-resolution geospatial information on environmental hazards. While access to the EIF is restricted due to the confidential nature of the underlying data, the Gridded EIF offers a broader research community the opportunity to glean insights from the data while preserving confidentiality. We describe the data and privacy protection process, and offer guidance on appropriate usage, presenting practical applications.
The Census Historical Environmental Impacts Frame (last updated: October 2024)
with Kendall Houghton, Eva Lyubich, Mary Munro, Suvy Qin, and John Voorheis
Abstract:
The Census Bureau’s Environmental Impacts Frame (EIF) is a microdata infrastructure that combines individual-level information on residence, demographics, and economic characteristics with environmental amenities and hazards from 1999 through the present day. To better understand the long-run consequences and intergenerational effects of exposure to a changing environment, we expand the EIF by extending it backward to 1940. The Historical Environmental Impacts Frame (HEIF) combines the Census Bureau’s historical administrative data, publicly available 1940 address information from the 1940 Decennial Census, and historical environmental data. This paper discusses the creation of the HEIF as well as the unique challenges that arise with using the Census Bureau’s historical administrative data.
Closing the Gates: Assessing Impacts of the Immigration Act of 1917 (last updated: June 2024)
with Ina Ganguli
(Under Review)
Abstract:
On February 5, 1917, the United States passed the Immigration Act of 1917, which included a test for all migrants arriving to the U.S. to prove they were literate. The Literacy Test was one of the first and few times the U.S. used a broad ‘skill-based’ immigration policy in an attempt to limit migration. We assess whether the Immigration Act had any measurable impacts on immigration to the U.S. Using a differences-in-differences approach and digitized data from Ellis Island ship manifests from directly before and after the Act’s passage and enactment, we show that the Act significantly altered selection into migration to the U.S. from Europe through Ellis Island, reducing migration from low literacy countries by 70 percent compared to arrivals from high-literacy countries. We also discuss other provisions of the Act that had the potential to influence the gender composition of arrivals. We show that women – and in particular single women – were less likely to arrive after its passage. Our analysis suggests that even during this period of lower immigration due to WWI and rising literacy levels, the 1917 Act was a consequential moment in immigration history in the United States.
Building the Prototype Census Environmental Impacts Frame (last updated: April 2023)
with John Voorheis, Jonathan Colmer, Kendall Houghton, Eva Lyubich, Mary Munro, and Cameron Scalera
(Revise and Resubmit, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy)
Abstract:
The natural environment is central to all aspects of life, but efforts to quantify its influence have been hindered by data availability and measurement constraints. To mitigate some of these challenges, we introduce a new prototype of a microdata infras tructure: the Census Environmental Impacts Frame (EIF). The EIF provides detailed individual-level information on demographics, economic characteristics, and address level histories –- linked to spatially and temporally resolved estimates of environmental conditions for each individual –- for almost every resident in the United States over the past two decades. This linked microdata infrastructure provides a unique platform for advancing our understanding about the distribution of environmental amenities and hazards, when, how, and why exposures have evolved over time, and the consequences of environmental inequality and changing environmental conditions. We describe the construction of the EIF, explore issues of coverage and data quality, document patterns and trends in individual exposure to two correlated but distinct air pollutants as an application of the EIF, and discuss implications and opportunities for future research.
Works in Progress
Red Tails, Broken Wings: Talent Misallocation Among America’s Most Talented African-Americans
with Guohui Jiang, Bitsy Perlman, and Hans-Joachim Voth
Abstract:
Racial discrimination can lead to talent misallocation. We examine the effects of discrimination against African-Americans over the life-cycle. In WW2, the US armed forces trained African-American pilots – the famous Tuskegee airmen. They arguably constituted one of the most highly selected groups of Black Americans. The Air Forces’ exacting, sophisticated selection procedures and the availability of aptitude test scores enable us to measure ability. We examine later-life outcomes using granular, individual-level data from the census, zip-codes of later-life residences, and income tax data. Comparing Black with white pilots, and Black pilots returning to high vs low racism locations, we show that pre-war racial discrimination is highly predictive of talent misallocation: Tuskegee airmen who returned to US counties with one standard deviation higher racial discrimination earned one third less in 1950, worked in occupations with markedly lower cognitive requirements in the 1960s, lived in six-percentile cheaper housing in the 1990s, and died in markedly poorer ZIP codes. Using individual-level data on ability scores from a large sample of WW2 recruits (going beyond the Tuskegees) shows that racial discrimination exacted a particularly high price among the most talented African-Americans. Our findings are robust to accounting for various potential confounders, including potential selective migration over racism.
The Effects of Severe Tornadoes on Migration, Income, and Education, 1970-2024
with Suvy Qin
Abstract:
In this paper, we examine the effect of experiencing a severe tornado on an individual’s migration, income, and education outcomes in the United States from 1970 through 2024. We use the precise start and end point geographic coordinates for all EF3 tornadoes and higher from NOAA’s severe weather database and map those tracks onto the residential U.S. population’s home addresses available in the Census Bureau’s Environmental Impacts Frame and Historical Environmental Impacts Frame. Using a local projections difference-in-differences approach, we examine the causal impact of a destructive tornado on an individual’s probability of migration and wages. We pay particular attention to the role of education, and the ways in which experiencing a severe tornado may interrupt educational attainment, leading to long-run negative effects on earnings.