"A re-appraisal of thinking on and the empirical evaluation of migration theories"

Abstract: Over the last quarter Century, there has been considerable efforts to systematize knowledge on and empirically test the drivers of population mobility around a set of eight theories that either explain the initiation or continuation of international labor migration flows. In this presentation, I provide a reflection aimed at furthering theoretical development and empirical testing of these theories. I do so by: (1) providing more specific guidance on how the different theories’ overlapping scales of influence interrelate more specifically than examined in prior work; (2) arguing for a more complete formulation of some of these theories to better explain contemporary immigration flows; and (3) discussing whether/how these theories can help bridge the understanding of the “drivers” of internal vs. international migration, and of labor vs. other kinds of mobility, including some forms of forced displacement. Throughout, I also discuss how the quantitative testing of these theories has fallen into pitfalls of both thinking measurement, which have likely led to a misattribution of the relative importance of some theories, suggesting some refinements on the empirical validation of and the more general use of these theories in guiding empirical analysis going forward.
*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration and the Center for Mexican Studies 

"The Health Effects of Cesarean Delivery for Low-Risk First Births"

Abstract: Cesarean delivery for low-risk pregnancies is generally associated with worse health outcomes for infants and mothers. The interpretation of this correlation, however, is confounded by potential selectivity in the choice of birth mode. We use birth records from California, merged with hospital and emergency department (ED) visits for infants and mothers in the year after birth, to study the casual health effects of cesarean delivery for low-risk first births. Building on McClellan, McNeil, and Newhouse (1994), we use the relative distance from a mother's home to hospitals with high and low c-section rates as an instrument for c-section.  We show that relative distance is a strong predictor of c-section but is orthogonal to many observed risk factors, including birth weight and indicators of prenatal care.  Our IV estimates imply that cesarean delivery causes a relatively large increase in ED visits of the infant, mainly due to acute respiratory conditions. We find no significant effects on mothers’ hospitalizations or ED use after birth, or on subsequent fertility, but we find a ripple effect on second birth outcomes arising from the high likelihood of repeat c-section. Offsetting these morbidity effects, we find that delivery at a high c-section hospital leads to a significant reduction in infant mortality, driven by lower death rates for newborns with high rates of pre-determined risk factors.

"The Midlife Crisis in Humans and Other Animals"

Abstract: The talk will discuss the concept of the midlife crisis. It will examine international evidence on happiness, mental health, suicide, antidepressant consumption, sleep, and so on. Not all the data will be on human beings. The talk will say something about where we are scientifically, and what we need to understand next. Plenty of time will be left for open discussion.
*Co-Sponsored with Public Policy and Applied Social Science Seminar (PPASS)

"Inequality around the World: Evidence and Implications"

Abstract: The lecture will present new evidence on global inequality and growth since 1980 using the World and Wealth Income Database. We combine data across countries in a homogeneous way to analyze world inequality. Global inequality has increased since 1980 in spite of fast growth in large emerging countries. We plot the curve of cumulated growth from 1980 to 2016 for each percentile of the global distribution of income per adult. This curve has an elephant shape as growth rates have been particularly high around the median (due to growth in China and India), growth rates have been low for the middle classes of advanced economies, and growth rates have been explosive for the global top income earners. We estimate the future evolution of global inequality between now and 2050 combining projected macro growth rates and within country inequality evolution based on past trends.
*Co-sponsored with the Department of Economics and Anderson School of Management and Public Policy and Applied Social Science Seminar (PPASS)

Please join us to hear our residents interesting research and give feedback for their upcoming PAA presentations.
Presenters: 

• Elior Cohen, "The impact of skilled immigration on innovation in the Age of Mass Migration"
• Sara Johnsen, “Continuity and Change in Contraceptive Female Sterilization in the United States, 1982 – 2015”
• Wookun Kim, “Does Pro-Natalist Cash Transfer Work? Evidence from Local Programs in South Korea”
• Ravaris Moore, “The Effects of Exposure to Community Gun-Violence on the High School Dropout Rates of California Public School Students”

"Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison"

Abstract: This talk will address my new book, Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison. The book  tells the stories of the men and women I met through the Boston Reentry Study, a series of interviews my research team and I conducted with people leaving prison for neighborhoods around Boston. We were trying to understand what happens when people return to a community, and the challenges faced by them and their families. How did they look for work and housing? How did they manage their addictions or mental illness, and why did some return to incarceration? In trying to answer these questions, I hoped to bear witness to the lives held captive in America’s experiment with mass incarceration. The research showed that imprisonment is followed by deep poverty, in which unemployment is widespread and survival is assisted only by government programs and family support. While earlier studies have focused on the stigma of a criminal record, the men and women of Boston also struggled greatly with human frailty -- mental illness, addiction, and physical disability -- that threatened success after incarceration and impaired the effectiveness of programs. They had experienced serious violence, often as perpetrators, but just as frequently as victims and witnesses, and often since early childhood. Under these conditions, freedom after prison was not a status granted by release, but something attained gradually. Becoming free was a process of social integration where one had to find one’s place with kin and community.
*Co-sponsored with the California Policy Lab 

"Self-selection or enabling environments: What predicts the association between short-term mobility and sexual behavior?"

Abstract: Short-term mobility is often associated with increased risk behavior. For example, mobile individuals often have higher rates of sexual risk behavior compared to non-mobile individuals, but the reasons why are not clear. Using monthly retrospective panel data from Ghana, we test whether short-term mobility is associated with differences in total and unprotected sex acts, and whether the association is due to enabling, selection, or influential reasons. In other words, do mobile individuals express higher levels of risk due to an environment that enables that risk? Alternatively, mobile individuals may be selected on some trait that predicts less aversion to risk. Men who were mobile in a given month had more sex acts compared to non-mobile men. Regardless of short-term mobility in a given month, both men and women who were mobile in future months had more sex acts compared to individuals not mobile in future months. Our findings support the hypothesis that both men and women who are mobile are positively selected on sexual risk behavior. The enabling hypothesis, that the act of being mobile enables sexual risk behavior, was only supported for men.

"When the Money Runs Out: Do Cash Transfers Have Sustained Effects on Human Capital Accumulation?"

Abstract: The five-year evaluation of a cash transfer program targeted to young women points to both the promise and limitations of cash transfers for persistent welfare gains. Conditional cash transfers produced sustained improvements in education and fertility for initially out-of-school females, but caused no gains in other outcomes. Significant declines in HIV prevalence, pregnancy and early marriage observed during the program among recipients of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) evaporated quickly after the cessation of support. However, children born to UCT beneficiaries during the program had significantly higher height-for-age z-scores at follow-up pointing to the potential importance of cash during critical periods.

"Meeting the Challenge of Homelessness"

Ending homelessness and serving the needs of our most vulnerable individuals and families is possible, but it requires sustained effort. Culhane will kick off the week by reviewing the national situation, including progress and continued hurdles. He will also describe unique challenges for cities like LA where many homeless are unsheltered.

"The Promise of Integrated Data Systems for Social Science Research"

Abstract: Integrated Data Systems (IDS) linking administrative, public agency data hold great promise for rapid and low-cost implementation and evaluation of homeless initiatives. Culhane will review the legal, ethical, scientific and economic challenges of interagency data sharing, as well as systematic efforts including policy reform and inter-agency collaboration to overcome these challenges. Finally, he will review important new IDS initiatives in LA County and California.

"The Role of Parental Wealth & Income in Financing Children's College Attendance & Its Consequences"

Abstract: This paper examines the influence of parental wealth and income on their children's college attendance and parents' financial support for it and whether the latter affects the subsequent levels of indebtedness of parents and their children. We use data from the PSID, especially data in the 2013 Rosters and Transfers Module on the incidence and amounts of parents' financial support for their children's college. To instrument for the potential endogeneity of parental housing wealth and income on these decisions, we use changes in parents' local housing and labor market conditions. We find that increases in both parents' housing wealth and income increase the likelihood of their children attending college through the effect of parents' financial support. This parental financing of college leads to parents carrying more debt, but their children having no greater student loan debt after graduation. We also find that parental financing of their child's college education significantly increases the probability that the child actually graduates from college.