Combining family history and machine learning to link historical records: The Census Tree data set

A key challenge for research on many questions in the social sciences is that it is difficult to link records in a way that allows investigators to observe people at different points in their life or across generations. In this paper, we contribute to recent efforts to create these links with a new approach that relies on millions of record links created by individual contributors to a large, public, wiki-style family tree. We use these “true” links both to inform the decisions one needs to make when using automated methods to link records and as a training data set for use in a supervised machine learning approach. We describe our procedure and illustrate its potential by linking individuals across the 100% samples of the US censuses from 1900, 1910, and 1920. When linking adjacent censuses, we obtain an overall match rate of 62-65 percent (for over 88.9 million matches), with a false positive rate that is around 6-7 percent and with links that are similar to the population along observable characteristics. Thus, our method allows us to link records with a combination of a high match rate, precision, and representativeness that is beyond the current frontier. Finally, we demonstrate the potential of the data by estimating the degree of intergenerational transmission of literacy between father-son and mother-daughter pairs.     

The association of life satisfaction and self-rated health with income dynamics among male employees in Japan

In this study, we analyze how life satisfaction and self-rated health are associated with income dynamics. We used data from male employees in Japan (N = 1004) drawn from a panel dataset of career wage records spanning a period of over 30 years. The income history used in this study was based on administrative records; thus, the data were almost free of recall error. Our results show that life satisfaction was more closely associated with a change in lifetime average income or maximum income than with a change in income compared to the previous year, whereas the opposite was true for self-rated health. In addition, life satisfaction tended to resist a decline in response to a fall in income from its average or maximum level, but this was not the case for self-rated health. Furthermore, an income peak experienced in the past made both life satisfaction and self-rated health more sensitive to changes in income, whereas a trough experienced in the past made them less sensitive. These findings suggest that the association of income between subjective well-being and health should be studied further, within a dynamic framework.     

Misreporting of Government Transfers: How Important Are Survey Design and Geography?

Recent studies linking household surveys to administrative records reveal high rates of misreporting of program receipt. We use the FoodAPS survey to examine whether the findings of these studies of general household surveys using one or two states generalize to a survey with a narrow focus and across many states. First, we study how reporting errors differ from other surveys. We find a lower rate of false negatives (failures to report true receipt) in FoodAPS, likely partly due to the shorter recall period of FoodAPS. Misreporting varies with household characteristics and between interviewers. Second, we examine geographic heterogeneity in survey error to assess whether we can extrapolate from linked data from a few states. We find systematic differences between states in unconditional error rates but no evidence of substantial differences conditional on common covariates. Thus, extrapolating error rates across states may yield more accurate receipt estimates than uncorrected survey estimates.     

Extreme temperatures and out-of-pocket medical expenditure: Evidence from China

We estimate the causal effect of extreme temperatures on out-of-pocket medical expenditure. To do so we match data from three waves of China Family Panel Studies, a nationally representative longitudinal survey for China, with daily weather records in the county in which the person lives. We find that both extreme cold and extreme heat increase expenditure and that the effect of hot days on out-of-pocket medical expenditure is collectively larger than that of cold days. Extreme temperatures increase time engaged in sedentary activities and contribute to sleep disruption and energy poverty, which adversely affect physical and mental health. Combining our preferred estimates with daily temperature projections from recent climate models, we find that out-of-pocket medical expenditure would increase by 2.290–6.149% in the medium term (2041–2060), depending on whether measures are taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Our study highlights a growing, but previously neglected, burden stemming from climate change.     

Age misreporting: An empirical investigation using the New Zealand contingents in the Second Boer War

This is a first focused examination of age misreporting in military recruitment. We take advantage of an original dataset comprised of New Zealand military personnel records in the Second Boer War matched with birth historical records. First, we find that age misrepresentation is common: about one third of soldiers on our dataset misreport their ages. Second, we find that soldiers the estimated age-specific mean heights do not change significantly when we change from using reported ages to using true ages. Researchers can prioritise the investigation of true ages on those reporting to be 21 or younger.     

Effects of public health policies on the health status and medical service utilization of Chinese internal migrants

This paper examines the effects of the “Equalization Program of Basic Public Health and Family Planning Services for Migrants” (EHFPSM), a novel internal migrant-targeted public health policy, of China implemented in 2013. By combining the individual-level data from the “China Migrants Dynamic Survey” and city-level statistical data, we find that EHFPSM contributes to a 6.9% statistically significant increase in the probability of electronic health records coverage and a 7.2% increase in the probability of reimbursement in the last inpatient visit, as well as a 1.2% decrease in the probability of one-year prevalence. The mechanism test shows that this program promotes the migrants' understanding of the policies and social insurance coverage to enhance their health status. EHFPSM brings about more significant decreases in disease prevalence for male and less-educated migrants, and higher reimbursement probability for urban hukou migrants. Our paper facilitates better understanding of the role of public health policies in promoting the internal migrants' health from the perspective of China.     

Colonization and education: exploring the legacy of local elites in Korea

In this article we examine the impact of pre‐colonial educated elites and colonization on modernization. Using the case of Joseon, as Korea was known before being colonized by Japan in 1910, we investigate how the civil exam system and scholarly traditions, as well as the provision of public schools under Japanese colonial rule, influenced levels of literacy in the colony. We introduce novel data from Joseon's historical court examination archives, colonial education records, and censuses dating back to 1930. Our findings suggest that the spread of Korean literacy during the early colonial period was strongly correlated with the historical presence of civil exam passers from the Joseon Dynasty. Regions with a greater presence of educated elites later had higher numbers of Korean teachers, as well as more private schools established as alternatives to the colonial public schools.     

When Cape slavery ended: Introducing a new slave emancipation dataset

When the enslaved were emancipated across the British Empire in 1834, slave-owners received cash compensation, and four years of unpaid labour as the former slaves became apprentices. In the Cape Colony, appraisers assigned a value to the former slaves. To investigate this, we transcribed 37,411 valuation records to compile a novel emancipation dataset. This gives us a new picture of the enslaved population in the Cape at the time of the emancipation. Some of our findings, for example that slaves from south-east Asia were assigned lower valuations than Cape-born slaves, are in contrast to those of an earlier literature. To distinguish between what the former slave-owners should have received and what they actually received, we matched the valuation records to the compensation claims. We argue that the uneven allocation of compensation had important implications for the distribution of capital after emancipation.     

Long‐term changes in sickness and health: further evidence from the Hampshire Friendly Society1

This article presents new evidence on long‐term trends in sickness rates in England and Wales using data from the Hampshire Friendly Society. In previous work, Edwards, Gorsky, Harris, and Hinde argued that this Society contained a uniquely detailed set of records for the study of individual sickness histories. However, their initial findings were based on the records of a relatively small number of men who joined the Society at different points in time between 1871 and 1912. The current article draws on a much larger body of evidence, based on the records of over 5,500 men who joined between 1824 and 1939. It examines trends in the seasonality of sickness episodes, changes in the relationship between sickness and age, and cause‐specific sickness rates. The results indicate that there was little change in age‐specific morbidity rates over time, but morbidity did increase with age, mainly because older men remained off work for longer, even when they succumbed to the same conditions as men in younger age groups.     

Strangers′ Disease: Determinants of Yellow Fever Mortality during the New Orleans Epidemic of 1853

During the summer of 1853, New Orleans experienced one of the worst epidemics in the history of the United States. Immigrants accounted for a vast majority of the deaths. In this paper, we analyze differential mortality risk from yellow fever using microdata form interment records. Using a logit model, we sort out the influence of demographic and socioeconomic factors on mortality risk. We establish that the strong relationship between nativity and yellow fever mortality disappears once we control for poverty status and immunization as measured by duration of residence in New Orleans.     

Occupational job creation: patterns and implications

This paper empirically investigates the matching process ofjob seekers and job vacancies, on different occupational labormarkets, and reveals the relative importance of supply and demandfactors, and frictions in the job creation process. Using datafrom German administrative records, we estimate matching functionsboth on the aggregate level, and for different occupationaland educational groups. The data allow to avoid some of theusual problems in empirical matching studies; extensive robustnessand stationarity tests are carried out. The results indicatesubstantial heterogeneity in the matching processes at disaggregatelevels. This information can be useful for policymakers, sincepolicy interventions that are effective in creating employmenton some occupational labor markets might lead to unsatisfactoryresults for other occupations.     

The in-hospital mortality rates of slaves and freemen: Evidence from Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1855-1860

Using a rich sample of admission records from New Orleans Touro Infirmary, we examine the in-hospital mortality risk of free and enslaved patients. Despite a higher mortality rate in the general population, slaves were significantly less likely to die in the hospital than the whites. We analyze the determinants of in-hospital mortality at Touro using Oaxaca-type decomposition to aggregate our regression results. After controlling for differences in characteristics and maladies, we find that much of the mortality gap remains unexplained. In conclusion, we propose an alternative explanation for the mortality gap based on the selective hospital admission of slaves.     

小议高校档案管理的信息化建设

21世纪的今天,世界早已经入了信息化时代。高校档案管理工作的信息化建设也早已有了专业的模式和规范。但是,如何更好地进行高校档案管理,是我们今天讨论的主题。     

Estimating Cash Usage: The Impact of Survey Design on Research Outcomes

We employ a unique dataset of transaction records to analyse the impact of survey set-up on consumers’ payments registration behaviour. Survey data are used for econometric analyses and validated against other payments data. The results reveal that the length of the registration period influences consumers’ registration of payments. Measurement errors are minimised when consumers use a self-reported transaction diary for one single day. Around 40 % of the transactions registered in a one-day survey are missed out in a one-week survey. Apart from payments research, the results are, among others, also relevant for household expenditure and marketing research.     

The value of invention patents in China: Country origin and technology field differences

This paper improves renewal payment based patent value model by introducing unexpired patents into the model. We estimate value of the invention patents based on SIPO records in China and compare values of patents between local owners and owners from the U.S., Japan and European countries. The study reveals that patent value from Chinese owners is much lower than that of overseas owners. This larger value gap implies important difference in motive of the patenting and R&D quality between China and those technology intensive sources usually from economically advanced countries and regions. The model developed in this study is also applied to patent data in different technical fields, successfully differing technical sectors with higher value (e.g., machinery) and those with lower value (e.g., pharmaceuticals), in terms of China market based patent records. Both applications prove that the newly developed model can be an important analytical tool for providing classified patent value on different purposes, especially in case of China.     

Budget deficits and money creation: Exploring their relation before Bretton Woods

The sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone has rekindled the use of the North–South (core-periphery) terminology to refer to the heterogeneity of countries belonging to the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In the gold standard literature, this geographical partition had already been employed to oppose the fiscal profligacy and subsequent problems of convertibility of southern countries against the fiscal probity and long convertibility records of their northern counterparts. We provide statistical evidence that the group of countries that, with available data for 1870–1938, exhibited convertibility problems during the classical gold standard, for this reason called the pre-WWI “sometimes-floaters”, shared a pattern of fiscal dominance. This finding for the sometimes-floaters (southern European and South American countries plus Japan) differs from the non-fiscal dominance pattern that we obtain for the pre-WWI “never-floaters” (northern Europe and North America countries) when the Great War and its aftermath years are omitted. We also show that the presence of fiscal dominance was partly due to the lower levels of tax efficiency and political stability in the South.     

Inequality among the poor of eighteenth century Amsterdam

This paper examines nearly 1000 poor to middling citizen households from the city of Amsterdam with a view to assessing their place in the larger wealth distribution of the city as preliminarily sketched in the work of Soltow, van Zanden, and others. It utilizes the probate inventories drawn up by the Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage, which when coupled with the marriage, baptism, and burial records of the city archives, allow for the reconstruction of the household circumstances, material, financial, and demographic, of the families associated with the institution. These data yield detailed information about precisely the kind of people who were systematically excluded from the tax registers and financial records which form the basis for our current knowledge about inequality among historical populations. The lower portion of the wealth distribution is described and then linked via housing rental rates to a more complete distribution of the various social classes in the city. Finally, the determinants of inequality within the ranks of the poor are examined and financial assets of even very small amounts are found to be critical in shaping the socio-economic experience of the lower citizenry.     

Welfare-to-Work Outcomes: The Role of the Employer

This paper sets out to explore the role of the employer in successful welfare-to-work transitions. We demonstrate the uses of administrative records in identifying the types of firms that repeatedly hire welfare recipients. We also develop sets of criteria to identify “successful” outcomes. Our results suggest that there is substantial untapped potential for using administrative data to identify not simply which industries hire welfare recipients but those that are most likely to provide recipients with long-lasting jobs, or jobs accompanied by sustained removal from welfare dependency.     

The Effect of SNAP and School Food Programs on Food Security,Diet Quality,and Food Spending: Sensitivity to Program Reporting Error

There is an extensive research literature on the effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on food‐related outcomes which has shown somewhat mixed results but generally favorable effects. However, most of the research has used data sets whose information on SNAP participation is gathered from responses on household surveys, and such responses are subject to reporting error. This study uses the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey data set to examine the effect of reporting error on food‐related outcomes, for that data set contains information on SNAP participation gathered from government administrative records. Our analysis shows that the degree of reporting error is small and has little effect on the estimated impact of participation in the SNAP program on food security, diet quality, and food spending. A supplemental analysis of the effect of school food programs likewise shows no difference in using survey or administrative data in the analysis.     

‘Real’ wages? Contractors,workers, and pay in London building trades, 1650–1800

Existing series suggest wages in London were higher than in other European cities from 1650 to 1800. This article presents new evidence from the construction sites that supplied the underlying wage data, and uncovers the contractual and organizational context in which they were recorded. Institutional records of wages were profoundly affected by structural changes in the seventeenth century, particularly the emergence of large‐scale building contractors. The actual wages paid to London building workers were substantially below current estimates.