Unemployment rates in countries across the world are typically positively correlated with GDP. China is an unusual outlier from the pattern, with abnormally low, and suspiciously stable, unemployment rates according to its official statistics. This paper calculates, for the first time, China's...

We investigate the link between agricultural productivity and net migration in the United States using a county-level panel for the most recent period of 1970-2009. In rural counties of the Corn Belt, we find a statistically significant relationship between changes in net outmigration and...

Although the vast majority of US research on trends in the inequality of family income is based on public-use March Current Population Survey (CPS) data, a new wave of research based on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax return data reports substantially higher levels of inequality and faster...

Using the Census Bureau's internal March Current Population Surveys (CPS) file, we construct and make available variances and cell means for all topcoded income values in the public-use version of these data. We then provide a procedure that allows researchers with access only to the public-use...

Using internal and public use March Current Population Survey (CPS) data, we analyze trends in US income inequality (1975-2004). We find that the upward trend in income inequality prior to 1993 significantly slowed thereafter once we control for top coding in the public use data and censoring in...

Using the internal March CPS, we create and in this paper distribute to the larger research community a cell mean series that provides the mean of all income values above the topcode for any income source of any individual in the public use March CPS that has been topcoded since 1976. We also...