This project will challenge an accepted finding in economics on the lifecycle pattern of inequality—namely, that inequality increases with age within a birth cohort. The research team builds on existing research from the Global Repository of Income Dynamics database to develop a model to explain an observation in the data that inequality is generated more from differences in childhood experiences such as parental income or school quality than from labor market experiences.

This project will answer how campaigns for unionization run outside of the National Labor Relations Board differ from NLRB campaigns in terms of firm, industry, and bargaining unit characteristics, as well as employer and union tactics. There is existing evidence that NLRB-certified elections are fraught with employer labor law violations and other barriers. Card check campaigns, on the other hand, offer a potentially compelling alternative way of organizing. This study will use an in-depth national survey of lead organizers in private-sector, non-Board organizing campaigns to examine the characteristics and effectiveness of the campaigns. The author will compile a database of non-Board organizing campaigns from 2016–2022 to show the extent of non-Board organizing, whether these campaigns have declined in number and size in accordance with NLRB campaigns, and which unions and industries have the most non-Board organizing activity. The author will then conduct a survey of 500 non-Board campaign organizers on employer and union tactics, unit demographics, and the election and first contract process.

This project partners with two guaranteed income experiments in Georgia to understand how guaranteed income affects asset development and credit-building. One experiment, in and around Atlanta, enrolled 654 low-income Black women in the summer of 2022. This experiment uses two different models of benefit delivery—equal-sized regular payments versus a one-time lump-sum payment followed by smaller regular payments. There is also a control group formed by those not randomly selected for the program. The other project takes 200 homeless clients from Project Community Connections Inc. and randomly assigns half of them to receive case management and housing assistance, while the other half receives those services plus $400 per month. For both experiments, the research team will link to credit report data and create a control group from the credit data to provide insight on racially patterned economic disparities and potential policy interventions. This paper will bridge guaranteed income—an income-maintenance intervention—with the study of wealth development and access to credit.

This project asks, “Can access grant inclusion?” The author will explore this question in the context of open-access coding platforms that allow people to be self-taught coders. The technology sector is notoriously exclusionary, and computer science degrees are difficult to obtain because of the high cost of college, among other factors. Could open-access training platforms create a path for individuals from underrepresented communities of color to take advantage of the explosive job growth in the technology sector? This project will address these questions by combining survey data with in-depth interviews and observations of those who have participated in a specific learn-to-code platform. Preliminary findings indicate that the open-access platform does not aid those who have been excluded from high-quality jobs in the tech industry. The project seeks to understand why open-access training platforms are not leading to success. What barriers do female applicants or applicants of color face in job-seeking? This research will be especially informative for efforts to address job quality and wage stagnation by advocating for worker training. If completing worker training does not lead to the desired outcomes, then policymakers need to understand those programs as only part of the solution and identify necessary complements.

Workplace sexual harassment is a pervasive problem that affects women more than men and often leads to a decline in productivity and altered labor market outcomes for survivors. This project is the first to attempt to quantify the implications of workplace sexual harassment for economic growth and gender wage inequality. What are the aggregate implications of workplace sexual harassment? And how can policy effectively reduce its consequences? The authors will use employer-employee linked administrative data from Denmark, along with a survey tracking instances of workplace sexual harassment, to calibrate a quantitative model. They will measure three channels: productivity, the accumulation of human capital, and the allocation of talent. They will also measure how each of these channels affect output and wage inequality, and how harassment affects workers directly reporting harassment, as well as the spillover to other workers at the same firm. These measurements will enable the authors to see when people change jobs after harassment or don’t change jobs, and they plan to look beyond policies intended to address harassment, including policies that boost worker power and mobility.

This project ties together neighborhood segregation, migration patterns, and local spending and policies to explore how “structural racism is built into physical infrastructure in cities.” The author will use granular satellite images to measure temperature in Black and White urban neighborhoods. The project will look at the degree to which neighborhoods are segregated and the level of surface imperviousness in each of those neighborhoods. The author also will map Great Migration patterns, White flight, and local government spending patterns. The research uses data from the University of Virginia’s Environmental Inequality Lab and builds on research on Northern cities’ responses to the Great Migration. Preliminary results show that historical Black migrant inflows increased the surface temperature of neighborhoods where Black households live, relative to the neighborhoods where White households live, as well as the Black-White gap in neighborhood imperviousness.