ABSTRACT. We find that routine-biased technological change decreases the employment-to-population ratio of foreign-born population over the last three decades (1980-2010). This impact is greater for foreign-born population with lower English proficiency. As computerization and automation substitute for workers in routine occupations, switching from routine task-intensive jobs to non-routine cognitive jobs may be more challenging for foreign-born workers than for native workers.

ABSTRACT. Foreign-born married women have a lower labor force participation rate (LFPR) than natives in the United States. Apart from discrepancies in family and personal demographics between these two groups, foreign-born married women may face additional work restrictions according to their status in the U.S. This paper explores the impact of the policy change about H-4 visa work authentication in 2015 on married female noncitizens' labor market conditions. Using IPUMS American Community Surveys data from 2010-2019, I construct a specific treatment group and apply the difference-in-differences approach to compare LFPR and employment-to-population ratio (EPR) between selected noncitizens and naturalized citizens before and after the policy change. I find evidence that this policy change significantly increased LFPR and EPR of the treated married noncitizen women by about 10% and 8%, respectively. Besides, family and personal characteristics, including education level, age, number of children owned, and grandparents' child caring support, etc. also affect women's working decisions.

ABSTRACT. This paper aims at evaluating the effects of the political impact on the perception of Venezuelan immigrants in Colombian regions. We use information from twitter to assess the type of perception about the immigrant population by municipality. We use text mining methodologies to classify the tweets and define their perception. Furthermore, we estimate a model to find the correlations between political perception and the importance of the right-wing parties in different departments. Our results show an association between the prevalence of right-wing parties and the negative perception and discrimination against Venezuelan immigrants in Colombian cities.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the housing tenure choices of undocumented immigrants following the largest immigration policy change in recent years. Our identification exploits the discontinuity in eligibility criteria of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides a renewable two-year reprieve from deportation and work authorization to eligible immigrants. We estimate a difference-in-differences model that compares eligible with ineligible individuals before and after the program’s implementation. Our results indicate that households headed by eligible individuals become more likely to be homeowners. We also find that eligible households have increased housing quantity. Taken together, our results suggest that even temporary authorization can increase investments in housing among qualified immigrants, which brings potential benefits to millions of adults and children in these homes.

ABSTRACT. Motivated by the consolidation and changes in the US banking industry's composition in the past twenty years, this empirical paper contributes to the fairly unexplored US regional banking literature. Given the positive link between cost efficiency and banks' ability to provide liquidity services, the finding that CBs are, on average, only 45.6% efficient relative to a best-practice CB facing the same conditions suggests that appropriate policies can promote the better provision of banking services in the US. Furthermore, this research is the first to generate macro cost efficiency estimates for US state community banking (CBs) markets. Results report that the most efficient state banking markets are, on average, nearly twice as efficient as the least efficient states. The heterogeneity found across markets is an important finding given the negative significant correlation found in this study between a CBs market's cost efficiency and the level of unemployment and job destruction rates of a state, which is a result my future research will continue to investigate using a larger sample period and more sophisticated econometric models.

ABSTRACT. The Main Street Program is a popular smaller-scale economic development strategy used to revitalize historic town centers across the rural United States. In this paper, I implement a difference-in-differences design using longitudinal business establishment data to estimate the program’s causal impact on job growth in downtown retail districts. Using a pooled sample of four Midwest states, I find no significant effect of Main Street Program adoption on downtown jobs or establishments. However, when I focus on each state individually, a substantial degree of structural heterogeneity across states exists. Specifically, while the other three states demonstrate inconsistent effects in response to program adoption, Iowa emerges as a state where the Main Street Program appears to yield its hypothesized economic benefits to the downtown business districts of participating communities. These findings suggest that Main Street Program participation effects are not generalizable across states and that implementation and local context matter.

ABSTRACT. This paper adapts existing best practices in measuring the economic contribution of local healthcare to highlight the value of local purchases. While hospital and health system wages, specifically wages paid to local residents as opposed to in-commuters, constitute the largest share of economic contribution, local purchases are important within small rural economies.

A regional West Texas hospital provided $62.1 million in healthcare services, including $6.5 million in charity care within its county economy in 2019. Through the multiplier effects of its payroll and local purchases, the facility contributed $74.1 million in output or gross sales, $29.5 million in GDP-contribution, and $26.5 million in labor income as well as 401 jobs to the county-wide economy annually. With tax-based funding of $7.1 million, each local tax dollar invested in the hospital directly provided $8.70 in health services to the local community.

Using the same methodology, a small South Plains (TX) hospital district provided $29.9 million in healthcare services in 2020. Each tax dollar invested in the district helped to attract $15.18 from other sources (e.g., insurance payments). As a result, each tax dollar provided $20.50 in healthcare services and paid $4.94 in wages and benefits, most of which ($2.72) was paid to local employees. The district contributes directly to the county through its $7.2 million payroll, 55% of which is paid to county residents and stimulates indirect and induced spending the county. Including almost $500,000 in spending at local businesses, the hospital district contributed $31.5 million in output, including $8 million in value-added and $7.6 million in local income, and 140 jobs to its home county in 2020.

In addition to highlighting results from these hospitals and nature of local spending, we present a template for hospital and health district studies, which was originally created based on interest from the state office of rural health.

ABSTRACT. Characterized by networks of interactions between individual elements, examining regional economies from a complexity perspective is becoming more commonplace by quantifying the connections and relatedness of various economic aspects such as exports, industries, technologies, and occupations. However, the majority of the work examines regional economic complexity of more urbanized regions within countries, if not entire countries themselves. Smaller regions are typically over-looked and rural regions are almost entirely absent from discussions. This paper seeks to fill this gap by examining less populous and rural regions from a complexity economics perspective. Using a previously developed metric of economic tightness, we examine skills space and industry space metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural regions in the United States. Analysis reveals that while some aspects of the metric are independent of population, less populous regions occupy different areas of the skills space network.

ABSTRACT. Natural disasters can disrupt a region’s ability to provide basic services such as water. This study utilizes a vector error-correction model (VECM) to examine water production. Our focus is on Los Angeles, an area that is susceptible to earthquakes, wildfires and other disasters that may cause water utility disruption. In addition to water production, the model uses a set of variables that capture elements of the labor market, built environment, energy and transportation networks. The VECM provides insight as to both short run and long dynamics among the variables. Moreover, the VECM provides a measure of the speed of adjustment from disequilibrium to equilibrium following a shock to the system. The VECM results provide a new look at understanding, measuring and analyzing the resiliency and recovery process of a community. In addition, the findings shed light on modeling community recovery, measuring and assessing resiliency, and in optimizing the risk management policies and practices of water utility authorities and regulators.

Acknowledgement: Ewing acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation under CMMI-CRISP Award Number 1735499 “Collaborative Research Type 2: Defining and Optimizing Societal Objectives for the Earthquake Risk Management of Critical Infrastructure” and Colorado State University/National Institute of Standards and Technology Subaward G-99042-14 “Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning”. Findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation and/or CSU/NIST. The author(s) thank representatives from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for helpful discussions.

ABSTRACT. We study water use by two geographically proximate farmers in a particular region during a drought. The two farmers each have an endowment of time that can be used either to produce water or to steal water. The price of water is exogenously given. The goal of the two farmers is to maximize their wealth from water production and water theft. In this setting, we perform three tasks. First, we determine the Nash equilibrium of the game-theoretic interaction between the two farmers. Second, we study how this equilibrium depends on the ease with which water can be stolen. Finally, we show how the preceding equilibrium is impacted when there is no water theft and then we determine the maximum amount that a farmer would be willing to pay to prevent theft.

ABSTRACT. To protect Americans from adverse public health effects and ensure that safe water is offered to all, the Environmental Protection Agency's Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) effective on December 16, 1974, required water system operators to periodically test and report on their water quality. While the SDWA applies to every public water system (PWS) in the U.S., the severity and prevalence of violations in water systems follow a heterogeneous trend among states. In this research, we investigate different categories of violations in public water systems within eight southern states including Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas from 2013 to 2020. Apart from rural/urban designations, several characteristics of water systems and violations such as types, sizes, water sources, and violation types are some features of this analysis.

ABSTRACT. Disaster or hazard events can significantly reduce the attractiveness of a place and reduce tourism demand. The Red Tide event that began in October of 2017 and ended in January of 2019 limited access to marine and coastal recreational activities along the Gulf Coast of Florida and heavily impacted tourism demand for this area. Using microdata on Airbnb properties and water sample records from the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, this work combines econometric methods and multi-regional input-output techniques to estimate the effects of this harmful algal bloom on the peer-to-peer accommodation market. We conclude that for each test detecting a significant concentration of the organism that causes the Red Tide events, the average price and the number of reservation days in Airbnb properties both decline. These declines represented a direct loss of approximately $70 million in the Airbnb market in Florida for 2018. In addition, many other activities are indirectly affected as tourist revenues decline. A multi-regional input-output model for Florida is employed to analyze the interdependencies between the tourism sectors and the broader regional economy. After combining micro- and macro-level modeling, our work concludes that the total economic impacts of the 2018 Red Tide event observed via the Airbnb market correspond to declines of $317 million in sales revenues, $197 in Gross Value Added and nearly 3,000 jobs. Due to interregional spillovers, 81% of the impacts on sales were felt in the Southwest Gulf Area and 19% in the rest of Florida.

ABSTRACT. South Carolina Economic Outlook

ABSTRACT. Oklahoma Economic Outlook

ABSTRACT. West Virginia Economic Outlook

ABSTRACT. North Carolina Economic Outlook

ABSTRACT. Over the past fifty years, the southeastern United States has experienced rapid economic and population growth relative to the stagnation and decline of manufacturing regions in the northeast and Midwest. The Rust Belt-Sun Belt transition literature has commonly relied on a range of factors to explain southern growth such as relatively low wages attractive to mature industries and branch plant facilities, regional amenities, technological advances, proximity to markets, and the social impact of the Civil Rights Movement. More recent work has cast the region’s growth in terms of neo-classical convergence, noting its bottom-up convergence and providing a conceptual framework consistent with region’s experience as the recipient of northern capital to this low-cost region. However, within the region, substantive uneven development remains. While the neo-classical framework can explain regional inflows of investment, questions remain regarding how local context and process influence the trajectories of individual economies within the region. To address these contextual issues, this paper utilizes a conditional convergence model to explain county level growth in the southeast from 1990-2018 to understand how the balance of neo-classical process and southern place-specific factors have affected the region’s growth. Results confirm neo-classical processes within the region and additionally highlight a transition away from low-cost manufacturing toward an increased importance of new, knowledge economy sectors. While new economy sectors are identified as significant drivers in the region, results also suggest future challenges for sustained growth due to a suburbanized growth pattern characterized by weak spillover effects and a lack of urbanization economies in urban cores.

ABSTRACT. This study provides a detailed analysis of the operation of the Jacksonville Clay Target Sports [JCTS], and the effects of the club’s community involvement in providing an accurate estimate of the overall economic impact of the club on the four primary metropolitan counties of Jacksonville, including Duval, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns. Jacksonville Clay Target Sports is an independent and private sports club located on nearly 170 acres in Jacksonville, Florida. In its 84th year, Jacksonville Clay Target Sports is one of the most premier and successful sports clubs in Northeast Florida. This report analyzes the economic contribution of the Jacksonville Clay Target Sports during 2019, including the club’s operating expenses, capital expenses, visitor spending and the combined contributions of the club’s community service and volunteerism. Using government-sourced economic data, models were constructed using the IMPLAN system to estimate the economic impact of the combined activities of the JCTS on the region. IMPLAN, a PC-based social accounting and impact analysis software, is based on national economic data, and the models were designed to determine the effect of the club’s operations on the greater community. This study will determine the total effects of labor income, the number of jobs created and the overall economic impact that Jacksonville Clay Target Sports was responsible for in 2019.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we study the impact of the oil and gas industry on county-level employment and wage earnings across not only the boom, but also the bust cycle. Our paper is among the rst to estimate wage and employment impacts of the bust cycle for the U.S. oil and gas industry and directly compare these employment and wage impacts for the boom. We then evaluate spillovers into other sectors in the economy, comparing impacts on tradable and non-tradable industries for three distinct geographic regions and estimate separate models for rural and urban areas. We nd variation across geographic context, but in general the oil and gas bust was associated with a signicant decrease in overall employment, with the eect most notable in non-tradable industries in rural counties. Finally, we investigate the dierential impact of the 2008 nancial crisis on labor in producing and non- producing counties. We nd that, employment and wages in oil and gas producing counties were impacted by the nancial crisis less than non-oil and gas counties and recovery in oil and gas counties started earlier.

ABSTRACT. Prior research identified the connections between regions based on economic conditions (Amin, 1999; Meyer 1964; Porter (2003). This paper will explore mobility patterns on a county level within Pennsylvania between 2005-2018, inclusive and the plausible reasons for these patterns. The examination of these patterns will use the LODES data in the LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) from the Census Bureau. Because of the heterogeneity of the sixty-seven counties in Pennsylvania, these differences offer different opportunities for specialization. Consequently, when these opportunities are exploited, they may add to the aggregate income to the county by attracting workers and/or firms from other counties.

Then, we estimate a regional spatial panel simultaneous-equations growth model, using analysis gs3sls, estimates the Generalized Spatial Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS) and the gs3slsar which estimates Generalized Spatial Autoregressive Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS) for Cross Sections Regression. The study region consists of 67 counties in Pennsylvania from 1980-2019. Estimates show feedback simultaneities among the endogenous variables, conditional convergence with respect to the respective endogenous variables, and spatial autoregressive lag and spatial cross-regressive lag effects with respect to the endogenous variables.

ABSTRACT. This panel session provides background and tips for early career development targeted to graduate students and others interested in the junior scholar job market. The panelists will provide advice on how to prepare for the job market, how to get a job, and how to be a productive and successful early career scholar.