Search Results
Journal Article
Industry Decline and Household Finances
Technological innovations that displace demand for local producers can hurt finances for households in the same area. Demand for Appalachian coal declined precipitously between 2011 and 2018 following a technology-induced shift in electricity generation from coal to natural gas. This coal decline decreased people’s credit scores in that region and increased their credit utilization rates, credit card delinquencies, third-party collections, and bankruptcies. Credit scores fell the most for households that were already near the subprime threshold, where small changes can have large impacts on ...
Working Paper
The Canary in the Coal Decline: Appalachian Household Finance and the Transition from Fossil Fuels
We use individual-level credit data to study how recent declines in Appalachian coal mining affected household finances between 2011 and 2018. Using exogenous variation in electricity sector demand for coal, we find declines in coal demand decreased credit scores and increased financial distress within two years of coal shocks. These effects cannot be explained solely by job losses in coal mine worker households. Credit score declines and financial distress were largest among older individuals and people with lower-middle credit scores. Our results suggest the energy transition away from ...
Working Paper
Place-Based Labor Market Inequality
This paper presents an overview of how various labor market indicators differ across geography. While many indicators are often discussed in terms of national aggregates, such discussions obscure the large degree of variation that exists across localities. We primarily use counties as a geographic unit, and document both structural differences that persist over time as well as differences in the past two business cycles. The racial composition of communities plays a large role in explaining geographic differences in labor market indicators, in some cases even more so than income. We ...
Working Paper
Suitability of a County-Level Income Definition for Analysis of Lower-Income Communities
This paper examines the costs and benefits of using a straightforward county-level income definition in the classification and study of lower-income communities. A definition based on population-weighted distribution of county-level median household incomes does a good job of identifying the most economically disadvantaged communities across a wide range of indicators. We show robustness to the use of different thresholds, levels of geography, and cost-of-living adjustments.
Working Paper
The Flight to Affordability: Effects of Pandemic Rent Increases on Renters By Geography
In the pandemic era, people moved from high-density, expensive areas to more affordable areas, putting upward pressure on local housing prices. We examine the geographic distribution of rent growth during this time and its effects on renters. We use administrative new lease data from RealPage and household-level data on rent and income from the American Community Survey. We analyze rents and incomes using Public Use Microdata Areas grouped in two ways: by prepandemic rent levels and by pre-pandemic rent-to-income ratios. Rents grew more in areas with lower pre-pandemic rents but not in areas ...
Working Paper
Health Insurance and Hospital Supply: Evidence from 1950s Coal Country
The United States government spends billions on public health insurance and has funded a number of programs to build health care facilities. However, the government runs these two types of programs separately: in different places, at different times, and for different populations. We explore whether access to both health insurance and hospitals can improve health outcomes and access to health care. We analyze a coal mining union health insurance program in 1950s Appalachia with and without a complementary hospital construction program. Our results show that the union insurance alone increased ...
Working Paper
The Role of Property Assessment Oversight in School Finance Inequality
This paper explores an under-studied channel for school finance inequality: property assessment. School districts have historically relied on local tax revenues (typically property taxes) to fund schools, which can generate disparities in funding across districts. Many states passed school finance reforms that give more state funding to poorer districts. These formulas typically discourage school districts from offsetting state funding by reducing local tax rates ("crowd out"). However, many reforms have not adequately addressed another source of inequality: property assessment accuracy and ...
Working Paper
Targeted Relief: Geography and Timing of Emergency Rental Assistance
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress established the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program, which provided nearly $45 billion to prevent evictions and increase housing stability. We provide new evidence on the implementation of ERA by examining the fine-grained geographic distribution of ERA funds and the timing of ERA expenditures by state and local governments. Using administrative data on ERA transactions, we find that ERA sent more funds per renting household to census tracts with higher pre-pandemic eviction filing rates, higher poverty rates, higher shares of Black ...
Discussion Paper
Measuring Renters in Credit Data: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data
Historic swings in rents during the pandemic have driven increased interest in research on the financial impacts of rising rents on households. However, compared to homeowners with a mortgage, data on renters are scarce, limiting researchers' ability to analyze the 28 percent of adults who rent their home.
Discussion Paper
Improving Housing Payment Projections during the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 caused widespread job loss, raising concerns about whether people can still cover their rent or mortgage expenses. Policymakers and researchers are working to understand the effects of the pandemic on housing payments and predict future payment rates.