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Center for Economic Studies (CES) Working Paper Series

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Center for Economic Studies (CES) Working Paper Series

This series features research in economics and other social sciences, by Census Bureau and FSRDC researchers, using restricted-use Census Bureau microdata.

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Working Paper

Business Owners and the Self-Employed: 33 Million (and Counting!)

September 2025

Written by: CHRISTOPHER GOETZ, HENRY HYATT, ZACHARY KROFF, KRISTIN SANDUSKY, AND MARTHA STINSON

Working Paper Number: CES-25-60

We use longitudinal data on nonemployer businesses owners and their employment histories to study self-employment, entrepreneurship, and ownership dynamics.
Working Paper

Unemployment Insurance, Wage Pass-Through, and Endogenous Take-Up

September 2025

Written by: MARTIN GERVAIS, ROOZBEH HOSSEINI, AND LAWRENCE WARREN

Working Paper Number: CES-25-59

Unemployment insurance generosity spurs more benefit take-up, dampening wage pass-through to reservation and re-employment wages.
Working Paper

Revisiting the Unintended Consequences of Ban the Box

August 2025

Written by: ANNE M. BURTON AND DAVID N. WASSER

Working Paper Number: CES-25-58

Employment effect of Ban the Box is significantly different in CPS vs. ACS. ACS results include zero; not due to survey frequency. ACS sample has more power.
Working Paper

A Simulated Reconstruction and Reidentification Attack on the 2010 U.S. Census

August 2025

Written by: JOHN M. ABOWD, TAMARA ADAMS, ROBERT ASHMEAD, DAVID DARAIS, SOURYA DEY, SIMSON L. GARFINKEL, NATHAN GOLDSCHLAG, MICHAEL B. HAWES, DANIEL KIFER, PHILIP LECLERC, ETHAN LEW, SCOTT MOORE, ROLANDO A. RODRÍGUEZ, RAMY N. TADROS, AND LARS VILHUBER

Working Paper Number: CES-25-57

We perfectly reconstruct 2010 Census records for 97 million people, correctly inferring race and ethnicity for 3.4 million vulnerable population uniques.
Working Paper

Education and Mortality: Evidence for the Silent Generation from Linked Census and Administrative Data

August 2025

Written by: CIPRIAN DOMNISORU, ANNA MALINOVSKAYA, AND EVAN TAYLOR

Working Paper Number: CES-25-56

Using full-count 1940 census and death records, we find that just a few mediators explain over half of the link between education and adult mortality.
Working Paper

Housing Capital and Intergenerational Mobility in the United States

August 2025

Written by: ARIEL BINDER, MAX RISCH, AND JOHN VOORHEIS

Working Paper Number: CES-25-55

This paper documents new facts about the intergenerational transmission of housing wealth and its relationship with local housing supply.
Working Paper

Differences in Disability Insurance Allowance Rates

August 2025

Written by: JOSHUA MITCHELL AND DANIEL THOMPSON

Working Paper Number: CES-25-54

This paper combines American Community Survey data with SSA administrative records to analyze differences in disability allowance rates.
Working Paper

The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Childcare Establishments

August 2025

Written by: KATHARINE C. SADOWSKI

Working Paper Number: CES-25-53

Shifting from county- to establishment-level analysis reveals how minimum wage policies reshape the childcare landscape across regions and provider types.
Working Paper

LODES Design and Methodology Report: Methodology Version 7

August 2025

Written by: ANDREW D. FOOTE, MATTHEW R. GRAHAM, AND MARK J. KUTZBACH

Working Paper Number: CES-25-52

This report documents features of the LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics data product, including data sources, methodology, and disclosure avoidance.
Working Paper

Receipt of Public and Private Food Assistance Across the Rural-Urban Continuum Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis of Current Population Survey Data

August 2025

Written by: PATRICK J. BRADY, RACHEL WIDOME, SRUTHI VALLURI, AND MELISSA N. LASKA

Working Paper Number: CES-25-51

There is variation across communities for using public and private food assistance based on level of rurality pre and post pandemic.
Working Paper

Locating Hispanic Americans, 1900-2020

July 2025

Written by: JOHN R. LOGAN, H. JACOB CARLSON, AND JONGHO WON

Working Paper Number: CES-25-50

The first study of Hispanic Americans' segregation in urban areas of the U.S. to cover the whole period 1900-2020.
Working Paper

Technifying Ventures

July 2025

Written by: YOSHIKI ANDO, EMIN DINLERSOZ, JEREMY GREENWOOD, AND RUBEN PIAZZESI

Working Paper Number: CES-25-49

This paper analyzes the roles of advanced technology and venture capital in firm and aggregate outcomes.
Working Paper

Earnings Measurement Error, Nonresponse and Administrative Mismatch in the CPS

July 2025

Written by: CHRISTOPHER R. BOLLINGER, CHARLES HOKAYEM, AND JAMES P. ZILIAK

Working Paper Number: CES-25-48

We link the CPS ASEC to SSA earnings to examine the relationship between item nonresponse and measurement error in earnings over time.
Working Paper

“Oh, Give Me a Home (Trade Share)”: Differential Import Price Inflation and Gains from Trade Across U.S. Households

July 2025

Written by: COLIN J. HOTTMAN AND RYAN MONARCH

Working Paper Number: CES-25-47

We form “home trade shares” varying by age, race, marital status, education, and urban status to analyze U.S. inflation and gains from trade by demographic.
Working Paper

Trade Within Multinational Boundaries

July 2025

Written by: LAURA ALFARO, PAOLA CONCONI, FARIHA KAMAL, AND ZACHARY KROFF

Working Paper Number: CES-25-46

Using novel data on U.S. multinationals’ customs transactions and production structure, we show that input-output linkages strongly predict intra-firm trade.
Working Paper

Credit Access in the United States

July 2025

Written by: TREVOR J. BAKKER, STEFANIE DELUCA, ERIC A. ENGLISH, JAMIE FOGEL, NATHANIEL HENDREN, AND DANIEL HERBST

Working Paper Number: CES-25-45

We find large differences in access to credit and repayment in the U.S. by race, class, and hometown, which are causally affected by childhood environments.
Working Paper

An Anatomy of U.S. Establishments’ Trade Linkages in Global Value Chains

June 2025

Written by: AARON FLAAEN, FARIHA KAMAL, EUNHEE LEE, AND KEI-MU YI

Working Paper Number: CES-25-44

We develop new measures of the linkages between U.S. manufacturing establishments' exports and imports.
Working Paper

Investments under Risk: Evidence from Hurricane Strikes

June 2025

Written by: RAJESH AGGARWAL AND MUFADDAL BAXAMUSA

Working Paper Number: CES-25-43

Firms with plants in areas subject to a hurricane reduce capital expenditures at these plans and shift capital expenditures to plants in non-affected areas.
Working Paper

The Rural/Urban Volunteering Divide

June 2025

Written by: LAURIE E. PAARLBERG, REBECCA NESBIT, SU YOUNG CHOI, AND RYAN MOSS

Working Paper Number: CES-25-42

Rural residents volunteer more than urban ones, but the gap is shrinking; place-based factors like religiosity and nonprofit density shape this difference.
Working Paper

The Decline of Volunteering in the United States: Is it the Economy?

June 2025

Written by: REBECCA NESBIT, LAURIE E. PAARLBERG, AND SUYEON JO

Working Paper Number: CES-25-41

Volunteering in the U.S. declined post-recession, especially in rural, unequal, and economically disadvantaged areas, erasing prior rural advantages.
Working Paper

Finding Suburbia in the Census

June 2025

Written by: TODD GARDNER

Working Paper Number: CES-25-40

This study describes a settlement typology that defines core, suburban, exurban, outlying and rural areas with constant statistical geography from 1940 to 2020.
Working Paper

Understanding Criminal Record Penalties in the Labor Market

June 2025

Written by: EVAN K. ROSE AND YOTAM SHEM-TOV

Working Paper Number: CES-25-39

This research studies the labor market consequences of a criminal record using linked Census and criminal justice administrative data.
Working Paper

Dynamics of High-Growth Young Firms and the Role of Venture Capitalists

June 2025

Written by: YOSHIKI ANDO

Working Paper Number: CES-25-38

The substantial growth and upfront investments of VC-backed firms are documented, and the role of VC is quantified at micro and macro levels.
Working Paper

Private Equity and Workers: Modeling and Measuring Monopsony, Implicit Contracts, and Efficient Reallocation

June 2025

Written by: KYLE HERKENHOFF, JOSH LERNER, GORDON M. PHILLIPS, FRANCISCA REBELO, AND BENJAMIN SAMPSON

Working Paper Number: CES-25-37

PE buyouts don't exploit monopsony or break contracts, but boost efficiency by reallocating high-wage workers and downsizing less productive plants.
Working Paper

Tapping Business and Household Surveys to Sharpen Our View of Work from Home

June 2025

Written by: JOSÉ MARÍA BARRERO, NICHOLAS BLOOM, KATHRYN BONNEY, CORY BREAUX, CATHERINE BUFFINGTON, STEVEN J. DAVIS, LUCIA FOSTER, BRIAN MCKENZIE, KEITH SAVAGE, AND CRISTINA TELLO-TRILLO

Working Paper Number: CES-25-36

We provide an overview of work from home (WFH) measures and results from new WFH questions we developed and fielded for the Business Trends and Outlook Survey.
Working Paper

Consequences of Eviction for Parenting and Non-parenting College Students

June 2025

Written by: NICK GRAETZ, ADAM CHAPNIK, DANIELLE H. SANDLER, AND SONYA R. PORTER

Working Paper Number: CES-25-35

Eviction during college lowers degree completion, depresses income, reduces marriage rates, and raises mortality—especially for parents.
Working Paper

The Effects of Eviction on Children

May 2025

Written by: ROBERT COLLINSON, DENIZ DUTZ, JOHN ERIC HUMPHRIES, NICHOLAS MADER, DANIEL TANNENBAUM, AND WINNIE VAN DIJK

Working Paper Number: CES-25-34

This paper studies the causal impacts of eviction on children's living situation, residential mobility, and educational outcomes in Chicago and New York.
Working Paper

Firm Heterogeneity, Misallocation, and Trade

May 2025

Written by: JOHN CHUNG

Working Paper Number: CES-25-33

This paper documents producer-level misallocation in Chinese and the US manufacturing and studies its effects on the gains from international trade.
Working Paper

Multi-Market Contact in International Trade; Evidence from U.S. Battery Exporters

May 2025

Written by: JAMES R. BOOHAKER

Working Paper Number: CES-25-32

Collusion is likelier when firms meet in multiple markets; I study how these repeated interactions affect battery exporters’ pricing across countries.
Working Paper

Property Rights, Firm Size and Investments in Innovation: Evidence from the America Invents Act

May 2025

Written by: JAMES DRIVER

Working Paper Number: CES-25-31

Using the America Invents Act (AIA) as a shock to innovation, BRDIS’s patent importance question is used as a treatment indicator to examine the AIA’s impact.
Working Paper

Impact Investing and Worker Outcomes

May 2025

Written by: JOSH LERNER, MARKUS LITHELL, AND GORDON M. PHILLIPS

Working Paper Number: CES-25-30

This research shows impact-backed firms hire more disadvantaged workers and favor them in wage increases compared to VC-backed firms.
Working Paper

The Rising Returns to R&D: Ideas Are Not Getting Harder to Find

May 2025

Written by: YOSHIKI ANDO, JAMES BESSEN, AND XIUPENG WANG

Working Paper Number: CES-25-29

Are “ideas harder to find?” R&D increases firm productivity MORE than in the 1970s, but rising obsolescence dampens gains to aggregate productivity.
Working Paper

Divorce, Family Arrangements, and Children’s Adult Outcomes

May 2025

Written by: ANDREW C. JOHNSTON, MAGGIE R. JONES, AND NOLAN G. POPE

Working Paper Number: CES-25-28

We use linked tax and Census records for over 5 million children to examine how divorce affects family arrangements and children’s long-term outcomes.
Working Paper

The Rise of Industrial AI in America: Microfoundations of the Productivity J-curve(s)

April 2025

Written by: KRISTINA MCELHERAN, MU-JEUNG YANG, ZACHARY KROFF, AND ERIK BRYNJOLFSSON

Working Paper Number: CES-25-27

Early AI adoption in U.S. manufacturing produced a J-curve pattern of short term productivity loss followed by medium term growth – though quite unevenly.
Working Paper

Startup Dynamics: Transitioning from Nonemployer Firms to Employer Firms, Survival, and Job Creation

April 2025

Written by: ALICIA ROBB AND ADJI FATOU DIAGNE

Working Paper Number: CES-25-26

We track a cohort of startups for a seven year period to study transition from employer to nonemployer status, firm survival, and job creation.
Working Paper

The Impact of Childcare Costs on Mothers’ Labor Force Participation

April 2025

Written by: VALESKA ARAUJO, LINDEN MCBRIDE, AND DANIELLE H. SANDLER

Working Paper Number: CES-25-25

Childcare costs shape moms’ work decisions. Using national data, this study finds rising costs reduce labor force participation, especially for low-income moms.

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Center for Economic Studies (CES)

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Page Last Revised - May 16, 2025

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