Working Papers

This study investigates how the 1927 Great Mississippi Flood influenced the intergenerational transmission of agricultural occupations in the United States. Combining county-level flood exposure data with linked 1920, 1930, and 1940 U.S. decennial census microdata, we analyze how this major environmental shock reshaped occupational choices across generations. Results indicate that children from flooded counties were 10% less likely to pursue farming relative to peers in unaffected areas. The effect is concentrated among children from non-farmer families, while the occupational persistence of farm households remained largely stable. Within the agricultural sector, sons in flooded regions were more likely to become paid farm workers, reflecting a shift toward lower-risk employment, whereas sons of self-employed farmers tended to remain in family-based farming, demonstrating resilience in traditional agricultural practices. The findings highlight how large-scale natural disasters can simultaneously disrupt mobility patterns and reinforce sectoral persistence, revealing the complex interplay between environmental shocks and long-term economic adaptation.

Tuition-free college programs have reshaped higher education by influencing enrollment decisions and institutional pricing strategies. This study examines the Tennessee Promise program’s effects on student enrollment and tuition-related outcomes. The results suggest that full-time first-time enrollment at two-year public institutions increased by at least 42%, with particularly strong gains among Black and Hispanic students. In contrast, public four-year institutions experienced a 2–3% decline in enrollment, indicating a potential reallocation of students from four-year to two-year colleges. In response to shifting student demand, net price at two-year institutions rose by approximately $100–$200 per student, and out-of-state tuition increased by nearly $850. Four-year institutions also appear to have reduced institutional aid by $200–$300 per student. These findings highlight how tuition-free college programs may influence enrollment distribution, financial aid strategies, and institutional pricing, offering insight into the broader implications of aid policy design.

This study explores the influence of U.S. child labor legislation on the intergenerational transmission of agricultural occupations. Drawing on data from the U.S. Decennial Census and the Census of Agriculture between 1880 and 1930, a Difference-in-Differences analysis indicates a 6.5% reduction in the tendency for children from agricultural families to remain in farming. Differential impacts were identified across gender, birth order, and racial categories, with an increased likelihood of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds moving into non-agricultural fields. The study also documents a concurrent decrease in the quantity of farms alongside an expansion in their average acreage, pointing to a consolidation within the agricultural sector. These findings demonstrate that child labor legislation was a key contributor to shifts in occupational patterns and hastened the economy-wide structural move away from agriculture in the United States.

Using cross-provincial changes in lagged birth rates as instrumental variables, this study estimates the response of unemployment and labor force participation rates to exogenous changes in the share of young workers in China from 2002 to 2020, across different age and sex cohorts. A one percent increase in the youth share reduces the unemployment rate by more than two percent for both young and older workers. It also raises the labor force participation rate for all age groups — except for young workers—while holding conditions in other provinces constant. Male workers are more likely to follow the cohort crowding hypothesis than female workers. This is inconsistent with the standard theory of unemployment, which predicts no relationship or the opposite effect between these variables. However, the findings are consistent with a frictional unemployment model featuring on-the-job search, where firms are more likely to find better matches in a labor market with greater mismatch probability. Additionally, the model’s predictions regarding wage responses to birth rate shocks are supported by the Chinese data.