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Due to restrictive racial housing policies, in 1970, 82% of Black residents in the city of Atlanta lived in 41 census tracts that had very high population densities. We take the density as a measure of the impact of these housing policies. The 1968 Fair Housing Act weakened these barriers to housing location choice. We explore by decade how Black residents adjusted to this high density and take the decrease in density as measure of the effect of the act. We find that there was substantial movement of Black residents out of these census tracts in the 1970s and that the exodus continued for several additional years. We also explore by decade the effects of density on the location of the Black population throughout the Atlanta region. We find that in each decade the change in the number of Black residents in census tracts is negatively and statistically correlated with the population density at the beginning of the decade. We find that it wasn’t until 2020 that the residential distribution of Black residents by density was similar to that for white residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Great Recession of 2007‐09 was a very significant economic event with substantial effects across the economy. An important but unexplored consequence of the Great Recession is its effect on income or earnings mobility. In this paper we explore the effect of the Great Recession on earnings mobility among low‐wage workers. Methods: Using Georgia administrative data, we identify quarterly earnings of low‐income individuals over 14 years. We calculate earnings mobility indices for 7‐year periods and explore the differences in mobility between the pre‐ and post‐Great Recession periods. We also calculate earnings mobility indices for 51 overlapping three‐year (12‐quarter) intervals over the 2000 to 2015 period. Results: We find that mobility is greater in the post‐Great Recession period. We also find that there is substantial variation in mobility indices in the post‐2007 period and that the variation in three‐year mobility indices is closely related to the unemployment rate. Conclusions: The magnitude of earnings mobility was affected by the Great Recession and by the unemployment rate in general. An understanding of earnings mobility during times of economic upheaval helps policy makers better evaluate the overall impact of recessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on legacy of Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia which is prosperous and powerful cluster of African American banking, insurance, commercial, entertainment, and religious activity. It mentions large-scale urban renewal programs, interstate construction in 1960s and National Trust announced the area's designation as a national historic site, a seed was planted by Coretta Scott King. It also mentions public transportation infrastructure.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the effects of state merit-based student aid programs on college attendance and degree completion. Our primary analysis uses microdata from the 2000 United States Census and 2001-2010 American Community Survey to estimate the effects of exposure to merit programs on educational outcomes for 25 states that adopted such programs by 2004. We also utilize administrative data for the University System of Georgia to look more in depth at the effects of exposure to the HOPE Scholarship on degree completion. We find strong consistent evidence that exposure to state merit aid programs have no meaningfully positive effect on college completion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT New business formation is an important stimulant to economic activity. However, some 20 percent of new firms die within their first year of operation. Policy makers designing programs to engineer regional economic development need to know what specific factors affect new firm survival. This paper conducts an analysis of the determinants of survival for new enterprises in the state of Georgia. Special emphasis is placed on the importance of local factors. Duration analysis is applied to four cohorts of new enterprises starting during the period 2001 to 2004. The results show that firms located in urban areas are at a higher risk of failure. However, firms situated in counties that have achieved a high level of economic development stand a better chance of surviving. Other factors such as firm size, ownership structure, industry entry rates, and business cycle fluctuations are also influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper provides information about the importance of non-pecuniary school characteristics, such as race and poverty, on teacher turnover in Georgia. Simple descriptive statistics indicate that new teachers are more likely to leave schools with lower test scores, lower income, or higher proportions of minorities. A linear probability and a competing risks model of transitions out of first teaching jobs allow us to separate the importance of these highly correlated school characteristics. The estimates imply that teachers are much more likely to exit schools with large proportions of minority students, and that the other univariate statistical relationships are driven to a large extent by their correlation with the minority variable. Thus, while the common notion that teachers are more likely to leave high poverty schools is correct, it occurs because teachers are more likely to leave a particular type of poor school—one with a large proportion of minorities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper makes use of a unique data set to explore the issue of whether inner-city residents are more likely to be hired by a new inner-city development than non-residents. A selection model with partial observability is specified and estimated. This partial observability model allows us to control for self-selection at the application stage and to obtain unconditional estimates at the hiring stage. We determine, holding individual and neighbourhood characteristics constant, that while inner-city residents are less likely to be considered 'hireable', their greater propensity to apply for jobs at this development means that they were at least as likely as non-residents to both apply and be hired. We also tentatively conclude that distance between an applicant's residence and the location of the development does not appear to have been an issue in the application decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1980s, many urban areas in the United States experienced a widespread expansion in the use of drugs in general and crack cocaine in particular. This expansion of crack use is thought to have resulted in various behavioral changes, e.g., an increase in crime and an increase in expenditures to reduce drug use. This paper examines how local police spending responded to the spread of crack cocaine. We use a pooled cross-section, time series data set consisting of 18 cities over the period 1982 through 1989 to estimate the impact of crack cocaine use on police spending, and find that police expenditures increased significantly as crack cocaine use rose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What conclusions can be gleaned from this investigation? First, it provides additional evidence attesting to the problems inherent in sell- reported economic survey data. Rounding, even without attempts to over- state or understate incomes, is always likely in such surveys. Second, given the possibility of rounding, it shows that the definition of income classes is important in determining class means. Therefore, investigators using computed class means should be cognizant of possible biases which might enter into empirical results if they accept without question published class means. Third, as was shown for the SEO data, if one assumes that persons are equally likely to round up or down to the nearest thousand, one would be better off to use the class mid-point as the class mark rather than the downward biased mean found when classes are defined to be x,000-x,999 or the upward biased mean found when classes are defined to be x,001-y,000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many previous studies have examined the level of state grants to local K-12 school districts. However, these studies have not considered the role of citizen “trust” in state versus local governments as a factor. We hypothesize that the role of the state in funding education reflects citizen “trust” in the relative capabilities of governments. We measure “trust” directly via public opinion polls that capture citizen attitudes about the appropriate responsibilities of state versus local governments; we also measure “trust” indirectly, by the role of state government as revealed by its relative importance in overall service provision (net of K-12 spending). We find that the state share of K-12 education spending tends to be higher when there is greater citizen trust in state versus local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• We conduct a laboratory experiment to examine the "flypaper effect". • Our design controls for the most important factors that may explain this effect. • We find consistent and robust evidence of a flypaper effect. • In particular, grants increase expenditures more than an equal increase in income. • These results can be explained by behavioral economics considerations. How do exogenous increases in resources to a government affect its expenditure decisions? Economic theory typically predicts that a lump-sum grant will have the same impact on government expenditures as an increase in income. However, empirical studies consistently find that government spending is stimulated far more by grants than by income; that is, grants have a "flypaper effect" because the money "sticks where it hits". We conduct a laboratory experiment that controls for the most important factors that have been suggested in explaining the existence of the flypaper effect. Our experimental design crosses four transfer delivery methods with three voting frameworks. We examine three payoff-equivalent transfer delivery methods, all relative to a fourth baseline treatment with no transfer: an increase in income, a subsidy (repayment) for expenditures on the public good, and a lump-sum grant. Our two alternative voting frameworks are voting over levels of expenditures and voting over changes with information on public good externalities, each relative to a third baseline treatment where voting is over changes from a default (reference) level of expenditures. We find robust evidence of a flypaper effect: both the subsidy and the lump-sum grant increase expenditures more than does an equivalent increase in income. Our results are largely consistent with, and explained by, theoretical models that rely upon behavioral economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of U.S. states are considering tax reforms that would significantly reduce or eliminate income taxes and recover the lost revenue by increasing its sales taxes. To gauge the economic effects of such reforms, we construct a multi-regional, dynamic, open economy, general equilibrium (CGE) model. Our model is an advancement over existing regional CGE models used to simulate the impact of state tax reforms in the U.S. context. We simulate the impact of a variety of tax reforms and find that Georgia's economy benefits but at the expense of the five comparison states we include. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]