황일명 교수

Abstract Close-kin marriage, by sustaining tightly knit family structures, may impede development. We find support for this hypothesis using U.S. state bans on cousin marriage. Our measure of cousin marriage comes from the excess frequency of same-surname marriages, a method borrowed from population genetics that we apply to millions of marriage records from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Using census data, we first show that married cousins are more rural and have lower-paying occupat

Many school districts allow students to report their preference rankings over schools and assign as many students as possible to their reported favorite schools. However, this well-intended assignment policy, known as the Boston mechanism, creates incentives for students to misreport their true pre

How does handwriting legibility affect the performance of algorithms that link individuals across census rounds? We propose a measure of legibility, which we implement at scale for the 1940 U.S. Census, and find strikingly wide variation in enumeration-district-level legibility. Using boundary discontinuities in enumeration districts, we estimate the causal effect of low legibility on the quality of linked samples, measured by linkage rates and share of validated links. Our estimates imply that,

Abstract This study assesses the phenomenon of resale price discounts for top‐floor units of residential buildings, or “top‐floor discounts.” Using 1.9 million resale transactions of apartment units from South Korea, we find that top‐floor discounts range from 1.3% to 8.3% of resale prices. We hypothesize that top‐floor discounts exist because of larger heating/cooling costs for these units relative to those on lower levels, resulting from relatively more extreme variation in indoor temperatures

The quality of historical US census data is critical to the performance of linking algorithms. We use genealogical profiles to correct measurement error in census names and ages. Our findings suggest that one in every two records has an error in name or age, and human capital is correlated with lower error rates. While errors in age decline across subsequent census rounds from 1850 to 1930, errors in names do not exhibit such trends. Fixing all transcription errors, hence leaving only those erro

The data and programs replicate tables and figures from "Economic Consequences of Kinship: Evidence from U.S. Bans on Cousin Marriage", by Ghosh, Hwang, and Squires. Please see the README file for additional details.

Cousin marriage rates are high in many countries today. While previous studies have documented increased risks of infant and child mortality, we provide the first estimate of the effect of such marriages on life expectancy throughout adulthood. By studying couples married over a century ago, we can observe their offspring across the entire lifespan. US genealogical data allow us to identify children whose parents were first cousins and compare their years of life to the offspring of their parent