Schools and Housing Markets: An Examination of School Segregation and Performance in Connecticut

This paper examines the relationship between house price levels, school performance, and the racial and ethnic composition of Connecticut school districts between 1995 and 2000. A panel of Connecticut school districts over both time and labor market areas is used to estimate a simultaneous equations model describing the determinants of these variables. Specifically, school district changes in price level, school performance, and racial and ethnic compositions depend upon each other, labor market wide changes in these variables, and the deviation of each school district from the overall metropolitan area. The specification is based on the differencing of dependent variables, as opposed to the use of level or fixed effects models and lagging level variables beyond the period over which change is considered; as a result the model is robust to persistence in the sample. Identification of the simultaneous system arises from the presence of multiple labor market areas in the sample, and the assumption that labor market changes in a variable due not directly influence the allocation of households across towns within a labor market area. We find that towns in labor markets that experience an inflow of minority households have greater increases in percent minority if those towns already ahve a substantial minoritypopulation. We find evidence that this sorting proces is reflected in housing price changes in the low priced segment of the housing market, not in the middle and upper segments.

Effects of Study Area Size on Geographic Characterizations of Health Events: Prostate Cancer Incidence in Southern New England, USA, 1994-1998.

ABSTRACT : BACKGROUND : We consider how representations of geographic variation in prostate cancer incidence across Southern New England, USA may be affected by selection of study area and/or properties of the statistical analysis. METHOD : A spatial scan statistic was used to monitor geographic variation among 35,167 incident prostate cancer cases diagnosed in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island from 1994 to 1998, in relation to the 1990 populations of men 20+ years of age living in that region. Results from the combined-states analysis were compared to those from single-states. Impact of scanning procedures set to examine up to 50% or no more than10% of at-risk populations also was evaluated. RESULTS : With scanning set to 50%, 5 locations in the combined-states analysis were identified with markedly distinct incidence rates. Fewer than expected cases were estimated for nearly all Connecticut, Rhode Island and West Central Massachusetts, whereas census tracts on and around Cape Cod, and areas of Southwestern Connecticut and adjacent to greater Boston were estimated to have yielded more than expected incidence. Results of single-state analyses exhibited several discrepancies from the combined-states analysis. More conservative scanning found many more locations with varying incidence, but discrepancies between the combined- and single-state analysis were fewer. CONCLUSION : It is important to acknowledge the conditional nature of spatial analyses and carefully consider whether a true cluster of events is identified or artifact stemming from selection of study area size and/or scanning properties.

Liquidity Constraint and Child Labor In India: Is Market Really Incapable Of Eradicating It From Wage-Labor Households?

One way to measure the lower steady state equilibrium outcome in human capital development is the incidence of child labor in most of the developing countries. With the help of Indian household level data in an overlapping generation framework, we show that production loans under credit rationing are not optimally extended towards firms because of issues with adverse selection. More stringent rationing in the credit market creates a distortion in the labor market by increasing adult wage rate and the demand for child labor. Lower availability of funds under stringent rationing coupled with increased demand for loans induces the high risk firms to replace adult labor by child labor. A switch of regime from credit rationing to revelation regime can clear such imperfections in the labor market. The equilibrium higher wage rate elevates the household consumption to a significantly higher level than the subsistence under credit rationing and therefore higher level of human capital development is assured leading to no supply of child labor.