Grant Category

Human Capital and Wellbeing

How does economic inequality affect the development of human capital, and to what extent do aggregate trends in human capital explain inequality dynamics?

The acquisition and deployment of human capital in the market drives advances in productivity. The extent to which someone is rich or poor, experiences family instability, faces discrimination, or grows up in an opportunity-rich or opportunity-poor neighborhood affects future economic outcomes and can subvert the processes that lead to productivity gains, which drive long-term growth.

How does economic inequality affect the development of human capital, and to what extent do aggregate trends in human capital explain inequality dynamics? To what extent can social programs counteract these underlying dynamics? We are interested in proposals that investigate the mechanisms through which economic inequality might work to alter the development of human potential across the generational arc, as well as the policy mechanisms through which inequality’s potential impacts on human capital development and deployment may be mitigated.

  • Economic opportunity and intergenerational mobility
  • Economic instability
  • Family stability
  • Neighborhood characteristics

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Empirical Evaluations of Child Care Subsidy Policies

Grant Year: 2025

Grant Amount: $15,000

Grant Type: academic

This project proposes to estimate a structural equilibrium model of the U.S. child care sector to use for counterfactual subsidy design, with the goal of finding an optimal cost-neutral subsidy design. The project consists of two parts. First, the author will evaluate the effect of reimbursement rate policies on local maternal labor force participation, child care worker wages, child care prices, and quality of care. Second, the author will use the estimated model to simulate the effects of counterfactual subsidy policies on parent utility, worker wages, mark-ups, and the distribution of quality.

The Distribution of Federally-Insured Mortgages: 1935-1975 Evidence from Local Land Records

Grant Year: 2025

Grant Amount: $30,000

Grant Type: academic

Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration policies are understood to have contributed to racial disparities in homeownership, wealth, and neighborhood opportunity in the United States, but systematic data on their mortgage activity is scarce. This project proposes to digitize and publicly release a dataset of FHA-insured and VA-guaranteed mortgages issued between 1935 and 1975 to assess the demographic and spatial distribution of these loans. Addresses will be geocoded, and names of borrowers matched to full-count Census data from 1930, 1940, and 1950 to identify borrowers’ demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds. This project will assess who received these loans; how they were distributed across neighborhoods; and whether FHA and VA insurance accelerated White flight and exacerbated segregation.

Unlocking Opportunity: The Long-Term Effects of EITC-Led Migration on Families and Intergenerational Mobility

Grant Year: 2025

Grant Amount: $30,000

Grant Type: academic

Building on past research on the role of the Earned Income Tax Credit in supporting migration decisions, this research will evaluate the subsequent outcomes for both parents and children. Leveraging detailed linked administrative data—including the American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, and individual tax records—the author will conduct a longitudinal analysis of U.S. families’ migration patterns and economic outcomes. High-resolution geographic information provides information on the quality of neighborhoods families move to and from, with variables such as school quality, local poverty rates, incarceration rates, labor market opportunities, and measures of economic mobility. Linking individual tax records with survey data allows for an assessment of children’s educational attainment, employment, and earnings over time. Tax records provide information on family income, employment, and geographic mobility.

The Highway to Displacement: Interstate 10 and Black Communities in New Orleans

Grant Year: 2024

Grant Amount: $30,000

Grant Type: academic

This project will examine the housing consequences of Interstate 10 in New Orleans. Specifically, the author will examine whether the construction of Interstate 10 resulted in differential housing outcomes in Black neighborhoods, compared to White neighborhoods. The author has created historical interstate data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Historical Geographic Information System, and additional census tract characteristics, including racial demographics, total housing units, owner-occupied housing units, and median home value. This study has the potential to shape the multidisciplinary literature examining the impact of highways, public railways, and other types of transportation infrastructure on neighborhoods. 

The Effects of Participating in Multiple Safety Net Programs on Family Well-Being

Grant Year: 2024

Grant Amount: $15,000

Grant Type: doctoral

This project seeks to empirically investigate the incidence and consequences of participation in multiple income support programs. The author proposes harnessing rich internal administrative records from the state of Virginia on program application and participation—covering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, child care assistance, energy assistance, and other programs—to accomplish three objectives: Producing descriptive statistics on the frequency of multiple-program participation and the characteristics of enrollees; estimating the causal effects of multiple-program participation on various dimensions of family well-being, including earnings, the duration of program participation, and interactions with the criminal justice system for adults and children; and evaluating the efficacy of multiple-program participation and the combinations of programs that have the largest effects on improving the economic well-being of those served. Although many individuals participate in multiple income support programs, there is little research examining outcomes. The unique administrative data here will allow the author to examine these realities with a higher degree of accuracy over time than has been the case with survey data.

The Effect of Wealth on Descendants of the Enslaved

Grant Year: 2024

Grant Amount: $15,000

Grant Type: doctoral

Due to federal American Indian policy, thousands of formerly enslaved people, or “freedmen,” and their descendants became landowners in present-day Oklahoma during the early 1900s. Over the following three decades, Oklahoma experienced an unexpected and unprecedented oil boom, from which a small fraction of these landholders profited. This research focuses on a specific subset of these landholders—Creek Freedmen—and estimates the causal effects of oil discoveries on their land on their socioeconomic outcomes and those of their descendants. In preliminary work, the author finds that oil discovery has effects in the very short term: Landholders who found oil at all appeared to be more geographically mobile, have higher-status occupations, and invest more in their children’s human capital. This research is poised to generate insight into how large exogenous influxes of resources into Black households may affect wealth and well-being in the near- and long-term. The focus on descendants of enslaved people links the historical work to contemporary discussions about reparations and racial wealth inequality.   

Experts

Grantee

Natalia Luka

University of California, Berkeley

Ph.D. Candidate

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Tal Gross

Boston University

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Kate Bronfenbrenner

Cornell University

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Natasha Pilkauskas

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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Nirupama Rao

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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Our funding interests are organized around the following four drivers of economic growth: the macroeconomy, human capital and the labor market, innovation, and institutions.

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