Using microdata from the 2000 U.S. Census, we analyze the responses of Mexican Americans to questions that independently elicit their "ethnicity" (or Hispanic origin) and their "ancestry". We investigate whether different patterns of responses to these questions reflect varying degrees of ethnic...

We specify and implement a test for the importance of network effects in determining the establishments at which people work, using recently-constructed matched employer-employee data at the establishment level. We explicitly measure the importance of network effects for groups broken out by...

This paper documents where immigrants who enter the U.S. with different types of visas ("green cards") choose to live initially and what determines those location choices. Using population data on immigrants from the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1971 to 2000, matched to data on...

Despite a longstanding belief that education importantly affects the process of immigrant assimilation, little is known about the relative importance of different mechanisms linking these two processes. This paper explores this issue through an examination of the effects of human capital on one...

We explore how umpires' racial/ethnic preferences are expressed in their evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers. Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity....

A common perception about immigrant assimilation is that association with natives necessarily speeds the process by which immigrants become indistinguishable from natives. Using 2000 Census data, this paper casts doubt on this presumption by examining the effect of an immigrant's marriage to a...

This paper examines ethnicity among highly skilled immigrants to the United States. The paper focuses on five classic components of ethnicity -country of birth, race, skin color, language, and religion - among persons admitted to legal permanent residence in the United States in 2003 in the...

"There is a large econometric literature that examines the economic assimilation of immigrants in the United States and elsewhere. On the whole immigrants are seen as atomistic individuals assimilating in a largely anonymous labour market, a view that runs counter to the spirit of the equally...

Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 US Census, I find little support for the opt-out revolution - highly educated women, relative to their less educated counterparts, are exiting the labor force to care for their families at higher rates today than in earlier time periods - if one focuses...

This paper reviews the literature on culture and economics, focusing primarily on the epidemiological approach. The epidemiological approach studies the variation in outcomes across different immigrant groups residing in the same country. Immigrants presumably differ in their cultures but share...