Seven Awardees Receive Stone Center Prize for Exceptional Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the intergenerational occupational mobility of Native American men who entered the labor market toward the end of the Assimilation Era (1887-1934). I use historical census data to construct transition matrices that comparatively represent the occupational mobility dynamics of Native Americans based on a series of historical policy variables. I find that Native American men during this period experienced high levels of downward mobility and correspondingly low levels of upward mobility. I also find that those living in counties with reservations had worse mobility outcomes compared to those not living on reservations, and that individuals who lived in Oklahoma, which had unique political economic dynamics, had the highest relative rates of upward mobility and the lowest relative rates of downward mobility. These findings provide quantitative insight into the often neglected economic lives of Native Americans in the early twentieth century and raise further questions regarding the persistence of mobility and how to alter mobility processes.

Awardee

Renato de Angelis earned a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy Studies and Statistics from the University of Chicago. During his time at UChicago, he worked as a research assistant for professors in the Economics and Political Science departments, as well as at the Stone Center. These experiences helped him develop an interest in inequality research and economic history. After graduation, he will return to the Stone Center to work as a predoc with Professor Steven Durlauf.

Abstract

Between January 2022 and January 2023, the estimated homelessness population in the United States increased 12% from 582,462 to 653,104. This is not only the largest increase in US homelessness on record in the new millennium, it also brings the highest estimated homeless population since 2007. In this work, we disaggregate this increase to the local level to discover the subpopulation trends it is composed of. Namely, an influx of South and Central American asylum seekers arriving in New York City, Chicago, and Denver nearly doubled the 2022-2023 increase and the 7 year growth trend in chronic unsheltered homelessness along the West Coast is steadily increasing annual counts. We recommend legal clinics to expedite the work permit and moving process for asylum seekers, coordinated landlord outreach and moving events for newly employed asylum seekers, and geographic redistribution of homeless asylum seekers to counties with more shelter capacity.

Awardee

Douglas Williams graduated from the University of Chicago class of 2024 with a dual degree in Public Policy and Data Science. Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, he spent late high school and early college involved in activism for the Black Lives Matter and Illinois Bail Reform movements. As an undergraduate, he split his time between policy and various applications of statistical learning and AI. On the data science side, he worked with the 3DL geometric deep learning lab designing algorithms to manipulate 3D objects, enabling robots to reconstruct their environments live in 3D as they explore them, and adapting generative computer vision techniques to simulate particle collisions with Fermi National Accelerator Labs. On the policy side, he worked on issues of political polarization, softwood lumber import prices, tech implementation issues and abuses by local governments, algorithmic bias, and homelessness.

Over the last four years, Douglas has bounced around between non-profit, management consulting, and corporate data science internships. He is excited to be joining the Comprehensive Income Dataset Project (CID) as a Pre-Doctoral Researcher after graduation to continue working to help us understand and better address US homelessness.

Abstract

Sociopolitical worldviews are ideologies that capture ways in which adults view the political world. These worldviews have long been thought by political psychologists to only emerge in young adulthood, however, developmental psychology findings suggest that children may begin reasoning about topics related to these worldviews from an early age. The current pre-registered study tests the emergence, strength, and consistency of two sociopolitical worldviews that are well-documented in adults – Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and authoritarianism – in young children ages four- to ten-years-old (N=144). The SDO measures probed children’s endorsement of group-based inequality and beliefs in social mobility and the authoritarianism measures assessed children’s leadership preferences, prioritization of authority, and preferences for defined group boundaries.

Additionally, parents completed a demographics questionnaire, including self-reports of their own political ideologies. Our results provide initial evidence that children do hold early forms of SDO and authoritarianism that vary with respect to parental political views such that children whose parents identify as conservative tended to choose responses consistent with higher SDO and authoritarianism and children whose parents identify as liberal tended to choose responses consistent with lower SDO and authoritarianism; children’s views also varied with age across measures. This study advances the field’s understanding of the development of sociopolitical worldviews, which have crucial personal, social, and political implications across the lifespan.

Awardee

Isabella Ramkissoon is a graduating senior majoring in Psychology at the University of Chicago. Originally from South Florida, she is attending UChicago as an Odyssey Scholar. She has worked as a research assistant at the Development of Social Cognition (DSC) Laboratory in the psychology department since her second year, where she completed her undergraduate thesis project under the guidance of PhD student Rachel King, former PhD student Dr. Isobel Heck (now faculty at the University of Rochester), and Dr. Katherine Kinzler (Principal Investigator of the DSC Lab). Isabella also won the prestigious Earl R. Franklin Fellowship in 2023 to support her thesis research. Following graduation, Isabella has accepted a full-time position managing both the DSC Laboratory and its sister lab, the Developmental Investigations of Behavior and Strategy Laboratory. In this role, she will continue building upon her thesis research while also supporting the research efforts of other scholars in the labs. Isabella intends to pursue a PhD in Developmental Psychology and, eventually, a career in academia.

Abstract

In this paper, I study the effect of minimum wage increases on employment. In particular, I examine data from the Current Population Survey to estimate the employment effect of New Jersey’s $15/hour minimum wage phase-in implemented in 2019. I break down the hourly wage distribution into a series of wage bins and use a synthetic control to create a counterfactual wage distribution. I estimate employment changes within each bin, then use these estimates to find the number of “missing” jobs below the new minimum wage and compare with the number of “excess” jobs above the new minimum wage to net out the total change in employment. I track the dynamics of these employment changes over time as five wage increases take effect between July 2019 through January 2023. I find the emergence of both missing and excess jobs that coincide with each minimum wage increase, but these changes do not persist through subsequent minimum wage increases. The magnitude of excess jobs dominates missing jobs which creates temporary boosts in total employment as a result of each wage increase. Overall, I do not find any sustained increase or decrease in employment resulting from the minimum wage phase-in.

Awardee

Joseph Spada graduated from Middlebury College in 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Computer Science. Upon graduation, he worked as an associate at Keystone Strategy, an economics and strategy consulting firm in New York City. In September 2023, he joined the MAPSS program at the University of Chicago, where he will be receiving a Master of Arts in the Social Sciences with a concentration in Economics. Following his time in the MAPSS program, Joseph will be working as a research assistant at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, after which he plans to apply to PhD programs in Economics.

Abstract

As sanctuary cities face an influx of asylum seekers bused from the United States-Mexico border, the city of Chicago’s decision to house incoming migrants in shelters has faced backlash from some community residents. Community frustrations on Chicago’s South Side have often been characterized as “Black-Latino tensions,” highlighting the ways that the recent increase in migration implicates racial dynamics in Chicago and across the United States. Based on findings from an interview-based case study of community responses to a shelter in a predominantly African American community, this paper instead argues that local tensions surrounding the migrant shelter are not, at their core, rooted in underlying racial animosity between incoming migrants and longtime city residents. I argue that the tensions are an outcome of a web of policies and practices that produce a sociolegal environment that, first, discounts, resident input; second, hinders intercommunity communication and, third, stymies neighborhood-based solutions. The analysis presented highlights important bridges between critical refugee studies (CRS) and critical race theory (CRT). It also serves as a starting point for research on the intersections between migration law and local municipal regulations, and the ways in which they affect old and new Chicago neighbors in parallel manners.

Awardee

Magdalena (Maggie) Rivera was born and raised in Chicago. She came to the University in 2020 and completed a master’s in social science in the final year of her undergraduate program. Throughout her time at the University, Maggie has worked extensively with the College’s University Community Service (UCSC) Center and Writing Program. She loves teaching and has worked as a College Writing tutor and teaching assistant for the Collegiate Scholars Program. She has also partnered with local faith organizations and nonprofits through UCSC’s Seeds of Justice and Microgrants programs.

She is interested in the intersections between critical race, refugee, and urban studies and grounds her research in literature on scholar activism. She sees her role as a researcher tied to civic and community engagement and frames her own academic goals through a social justice lens. She is continuing her work in Chicago’s nonprofit sector and community organizing post-graduation. In the future, she hopes to pursue a PhD and complete some of her creative writing projects.

She wants to thank the many teachers, friends, family, and mentors that continue to push her to think critically and openly. This research would not have been possible without their support and kindness.

Abstract

Homelessness is arguably the most extreme hardship associated with poverty in the United States, yet people experiencing homelessness are excluded from official poverty statistics and much of the extreme poverty literature. This paper provides the most detailed and accurate portrait to date of the level and persistence of material disadvantage faced by this population, including the first national estimates of income, employment, and safety net participation based on administrative data. Starting from the first large and nationally representative sample of adults recorded as sheltered and unsheltered homeless taken from the 2010 Census, we link restricted-use longitudinal tax records and administrative data on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicare, Medicaid, Disability Insurance (DI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), veterans’ benefits, housing assistance, and mortality.

Nearly half of these adults had formal employment in the year they were observed as homeless, and nearly all either worked or were reached by at least one safety net program. Nevertheless, their incomes remained low for the decade surrounding an observed period of homelessness, suggesting that homelessness tends to arise in the context of long-term, severe deprivation rather than large and sudden losses of income. People appear to experience homelessness because they are very poor despite being connected to the labor market and safety net, with low permanent incomes leaving them vulnerable to the loss of housing when met with even modest disruptions to life circumstances.

Awardee

Angela Wyse holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Harris School and will join Dartmouth College as an Assistant Professor of Economics in Fall 2024. Her research focuses on homelessness, poverty, and the effects of safety net programs, with a particular interest in difficult-to-study populations. She holds a B.A. in Public Policy from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. Before Harris, she spent five years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, completing tours in Casablanca, Morocco and Karachi, Pakistan. Angela grew up in the small town of Tecumseh, Michigan and is a first-generation college student. When not working on research, you can find her running very long distances in the woods and traveling to remote and unique locations.

Abstract

This dissertation studies different facets of cross-border life, through a comparative analysis of first- and second- generation Latinos in the United States. I begin with a quantitative overview of different transnational characteristics including remitting, transnational employment, dual citizenship, location of family members, homeland visits, transnational financial assets, and homeland property ownership (Ch.1). While many of these characteristics decline over generation, I find that homeland property ownership is greater for the second generation compared with the first. Subsequent chapters explore this finding in more depth, examining homeland property purchase and inheritance (Ch.2), homeland property ownership aspirations (Ch.3), and homeland retirement aspirations (Ch.4).

I show how property ownership abroad and return migration intentions may be in reaction to anxieties about race, the increasing economic stress of life in the US, or an insurance policy in the event of a potential deportation of oneself or loved ones. Additionally, both immigrants and the second generation may look beyond US borders—often to their countries of origin, but not exclusively—for a sense of self. Indeed, even when firmly planted in the US—professionally and economically—Latinos may still look abroad for cultural and ethnic identification, often through real or aspirational economic attachment to a place.

Ultimately, immigrant and second-generation cross border investments are laden with both economic and affective components. This topic is particularly important given the present globalized societal context where people—beyond the ultra-wealthy—are decreasingly beholden to life within a single national context. While this is a case study of a limited set of transnational behaviors among a select population, this study may shed light onto how the general American and global public may similarly look outside their country of residence for both investments, and better long-term quality of life.

Awardee

Ilana Ventura received her PhD in Sociology at the University of Chicago in 2024 and works as a Research Methodologist at NORC at the University of Chicago. Trained as a sociologist, demographer, and survey researcher, Ilana’s substantive research studies immigrant families, remittances, labor, housing, and aging, while her methodological research focuses on how to improve the representation of Latinos and other hard-to-reach populations in surveys. Ilana has taught sociology courses at the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as methods-based short courses for the American Association for Public Opinion Research and for various clients. Her work appears in the International Migration Review, The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Royal Statistical Society Series A, Discover Social Science and Health, and the JSM Proceedings, Survey Research Methods Section.