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This paper examines the persistent effects of eliminating tariffs on Mexican imports, following the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), on Americans' human capital investment. We leverage quasi‐experimental changes in tariffs on Mexican imports across birth cohorts and within states. We show that NAFTA increases the probability of ever attending college and earning a degree. These results, however, mask important heterogeneous effects within the sample. We find white Americans drive these positive effects. In contrast, the educational attainment of racial and ethnic minorities, especially men, shrank under NAFTA, decreasing their probability of graduating from high school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows international students to work temporarily in the United States during or directly following their studies. In 2008 the work duration was extended for eligible STEM majors, and in 2011 and 2012 the list of eligible majors was expanded. Using administrative records, we examine how these reforms impacted the enrollment and quality of international students. OPT reforms raised matriculation of international students in bachelor's and master's programs by 18% and 30%, respectively. Additionally, they improved the quality of students, as exemplified by greater scholarship/fellowship funding and matriculation into highly selective universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aggregate matching efficiency (AME) is constructed and endogenized for assessing driving forces behind U.S. unemployment fluctuations. Working with AME sidesteps the problematic orthogonal assumptions on sources of mismatch in the previous studies. Matching efficiency and labor supply shocks, which capture potential variations in structural factors, are identified in a time‐varying structural vector autoregression. Empirical results suggest that the bulk of U.S. unemployment fluctuations is cyclical rather than structural. Meanwhile, the contribution of aggregate shocks to unemployment is substantially time‐varying. In particular, the surge of unemployment rate during the Great Recession is mainly resulting from a shortfall in aggregate demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate if increased deportations under the Secure Communities (SC) program impacted the marriage patterns of immigrant women in the United States. We focus on country of origin‐MSA deportation rates, arguing this is appropriate given the dominance of endogamous marriage among immigrants and large heterogeneity in removal rates. We find that rising deportations increased marriage rates and endogamous marriage, decreased exogamous marriage to immigrants from other countries, and had no impact on marriage to native‐born men. This is striking because SC likely reduced same ethnicity partners in marriage markets. We find some evidence that increased network effects may explain these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]