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Working Paper
02.21.2022 |
WP 22-04
This paper documents several facts about internal migrants in the US that underlie substantial areas of economic research and policy making, but are rarely directly published. Using a large-sample, 23-year panel, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel, I estimate the distribution of changes in local labor market conditions experienced by people who move to a different labor market. Net migration favors local labor markets with lower unemployment and faster job growth, but gross flows toward weaker labor markets are almost as large as the flows toward stronger labor markets. During recessions, net flows temporarily favor weaker labor markets. Migrants frequently choose destinations with similar labor market conditions rather than moving to the markets with the highest growth or lowest unemployment at the time of their move. A hypothesis that personal financial health improves for people moving to tight local labor markets (or deteriorates for migrants to slack labor markets) is only partially supported in the data. Migrants to low-unemployment and high-employment growth regions have higher homeownership rates after they move. However, there are not clear advantages or disadvantages for migrants to strong or weak labor market regions as measured by credit scores, consumption, bankruptcy, or foreclosure.
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Working Paper
12.26.2021 |
WP 21-29
The scale of wildfire destruction has grown exponentially in recent years, destroying nearly 25,000 buildings in the United States during 2018 alone. However, there is still limited research exploring how wildfires affect migration patterns and household finances. In this study, we evaluate the effects of wildfire destruction on in-migration and out-migration probability at the Census tract level in the United States from 1999 to 2018. We then shift to the individual level and examine changes in homeownership, consumer credit usage, and financial distress among people whose neighborhood suffered damaging fires. We pair quarterly observations from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel with building destruction counts from the US National Incident Management System/Incident Command System database of wildfire events. Our findings show significantly heightened out-migration probability among tracts that experienced the most destructive wildfires, but no effect on in-migration probability. Among the consumer credit measures, we find a significant drop in homeownership among those treated by major fires. This is concentrated in people over the age of 60. Measures of credit distress, including delinquencies, bankruptcies, and foreclosures, improve rather than deteriorate after the fire, but the changes are not statistically significant. While wildfire effects on migration and borrowing are measurable, they are not yet as large as those observed following other natural disasters such as hurricanes.
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Working Paper
10.12.2021 |
WP 21-22
In this paper, we infuse consideration of migration into research on economic losses from extreme weather disasters. Taking a comparative case study approach and using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel, we document the size of economic losses via migration from 23 disaster-affected areas in the United States after the most damaging hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires on record. We then employ demographic standardization and decomposition to determine if these losses primarily reflect changes in out-migration or changes in the economic resources that migrants take with them (greater economic losses per migrant). Finally, we consider the implications of these losses for changing spatial inequality in the United States. While disaster-affected areas and those living in them differ in their experiences of and responses to extreme weather disasters, we generally find that, relative to the year before an extreme weather disaster, economic losses via migration from disaster-affected areas increase the year of and after the disaster, that these changes primarily reflect changes in out-migration (vs. the economic resources that migrants take with them), and that these losses briefly disrupt the status quo by temporarily reducing spatial inequality.
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Working Paper
10.22.2020 |
WP 15-33R
Using the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY), this article examines the influence of a region’s industrial composition on the educational attainment of children raised by parents who do not have college degrees. The NLSY’s geo-coded panel allows for precise measurements of the local industries that shaped the parents’ employment opportunities and the labor market that the children directly observed. For cohorts finishing school in the 1990s and early 2000s, concentrations of manufacturing are positively associated with both high school and college attainment. Concentrations of college-degree intensive industries are positively associated with college attainment. I investigate several potential mechanisms that could relate the industrial composition to educational attainment, including returns to education, opportunity costs, parental inputs, community resources, and information.
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Working Paper
06.21.2019 |
WP 1804R
We introduce and provide the first comprehensive comparative assessment of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel (CCP) as a valuable and underutilized data set for studying internal migration within the United States. Relative to other data sources on US internal migration, the CCP permits highly detailed cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of migration, both temporally and geographically. We compare cross-sectional and longitudinal estimates of migration from the CCP to similar estimates derived from the American Community Survey, the Current Population Survey, Internal Revenue Service data, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Our results establish the comparative utility and illustrate some of the unique advantages of the CCP relative to other data sources on US internal migration. We conclude by identifying some profitable directions for future research on US internal migration using the CCP, as well as reminding readers of the strengths and limitations of these data. More broadly, this paper contributes to discussions and debates on improving the availability, quality, and comparability of migration data.
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Working Paper
03.23.2018 |
WP 18-04
This paper demonstrates that credit bureau data, such as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax (CCP), can be used to study internal migration in the United States. It is comparable to, and in some ways superior to, the standard data used to study migration, including the American Community Survey (ACS), the Current Population Survey (CPS), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) county-to-county migration data. CCP-based estimates of migration intensity, connectivity, and spatial focusing are similar to estimates derived from the ACS, CPS, and IRS data. The CCP can measure block-to-block migration and it is available at quarterly rather than annual frequencies. Migrants’ precise origins are not available in public versions of the ACS, CPS, or IRS data. We report measures of migration from the CCP data at finer geographies and time intervals. Finally, we disaggregate migration flows into first-, second-, and higher-order moves. Individual-level panels in the CCP make this possible, giving the CCP an additional advantage over the ACS, CPS, or publicly available IRS data.
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Working Paper
12.23.2016 |
WP 16-37
Using the results of a comprehensive in-person survey of properties in Cleveland, Ohio, we fit predictive models of vacancy and property conditions. We draw predictor variables from administrative data that is available in most jurisdictions such as deed recordings, tax assessor's property characteristics, and foreclosure filings. Using logistic regression and machine learning methods, we are able to make reasonably accurate out-of-sample predictions. Our findings indicate that housing professionals could use administrative data and predictive models to identify distressed properties between surveys or among nonsurveyed properties in an area subject to a random sample survey.
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Working Paper
12.21.2016 |
WP 16-31
We examine the impact of earthquakes on residential property values using sales data from Oklahoma from 2006 to 2014. Using hedonic models, we estimate that prices decline by 3 to 4 percent after a home has experienced a moderate earthquake measuring 4 or 5 on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale and up to 9.8 percent after a potentially damaging earthquake with intensity above 6.
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Working Paper
12.31.2015 |
WP 15-34
Economic theory suggests that bond issuers of lower credit quality or higher opacity should be more likely to issue bonds with premium coupons (higher coupon rates relative to yields at issuance).
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Working Paper
12.31.2015 |
WP 15-33
For five decades, the share of adults employed in college-degree-intensive industries, such as health care and education, has been rising.
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Working Paper
12.31.2014 |
WP 14-40
Economists are shifting attention and resources from work on survey data towork on “big data.” This analysis is an empirical exploration of the trade-offs this transition requires. Parallel models are estimated using the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax and the Survey of Consumer Finances. After adjustments to account for different variable definitions and sampled populations, it is possible to arrive at similar models of total household debt. However, the estimates are sensitive to the adjustments. Little similarity is observed in parallel models of nonmortgage debt. While surveys intentionally collect theoretically related variables, it may be necessary to merge external data into commercial big data. In this example, some education and income measures are successfully integrated with the big data, but other external aggregates fail to adequately substitute for survey responses. Big data offers sample sizes, frequencies, and details that surveys cannot match. However, this example illustrates why caution is appropriate when attempting to substitute big data for a carefully executed survey.
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Working Paper
12.01.2014 |
WP 14-31
We estimate the extent to which variation in local government revenues and expenditures after the Great Recession can be explained by variation in the expansion of household debt from 2002 to 2007, and the contraction thereafter.
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Working Paper
10.01.2014 |
WP 12-40R
This paper assesses the ability of local housing ordinances to prevent neighborhood destabilization.
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Working Paper
10.01.2014 |
WP 12-40
This paper assesses the ability of local housing ordinances to prevent neighborhood destabilization.
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Working Paper
09.01.2014 |
WP 12-30R
In 2009, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which contains Cleveland and 58 other municipalities, created the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation.
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Working Paper
06.03.2014 |
WP 14-04
When local governments default or file for bankruptcy, it is often because public officials misunderstood the risks associated with innovative financial products.
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Working Paper
11.28.2012 |
WP 12-31
Raising the share of adults with college degrees in a region is often a goal of regional policymakers. This analysis demonstrates how different measures would suggest different rankings on this measure.
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Working Paper
11.27.2012 |
WP 12-30
In 2009, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which contains Cleveland and 58 other municipalities, created the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation.
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Working Paper
03.01.2012 |
WP 11-23R2
In this empirical analysis, we estimate the impact of vacancy, neglect associated with property-tax delinquency, and foreclosures on the value of neighboring homes using parcel-level observations.
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Working Paper
12.01.2011 |
WP 11-23R1
In this empirical analysis, we estimate the impact of vacancy, neglect associated with property-tax delinquency, and foreclosures on the value of neighboring homes using parcel-level observations.
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Working Paper
09.28.2011 |
WP 11-23
In this empirical analysis, we estimate the impact of vacancy, neglect associated with property-tax delinquency, and foreclosures on the value of neighboring homes using parcel-level observations.
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Working Paper
04.19.2011 |
WP 11-10
This paper proposes and tests a structural model reflecting the process of authorizing private-activity municipal bond issuance.
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Working Paper
09.15.2010 |
WP 10-13
State governments allocate authority to issue tax-exempt bonds to fund "private activities" such as student loans and low-income housing. This paper presents political economy models of the allocation process and an empirical analysis.
