Anita Alves Pena | Colorado State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Anita Alves Pena
Vocational Choices of the Legal and Illegul: The Case of Mexican Agricultural Workers in the U.S
The International Migration Review, 2009
Pesticide exposure and the physical and economic health of US crop workers
Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy
The Review of Black Political Economy
Using skill and earnings data from the OECD’s newly released Programme for the International Asse... more Using skill and earnings data from the OECD’s newly released Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and decomposition methodology from literature on economic distributions across countries, this research provides new evidence about the limited extent to which levels of and rates of return to skills explain unequal wage distributions in subgroups defined by race and ethnicity in the United States. The specific importance of PIAAC skill levels and of rates of return to skill varies substantially between racial and ethnic minorities relative to Whites and across the upper and lower parts of the wage distribution, while unobservables remain critical. These findings about differential characteristics of wage spreads are in contrast to relatively high correlations between the means of wage distributions and the more comprehensively defined skill measures observed in PIAAC (in comparison to those that have been examined in past literature), and are robust ...
Local Labor Market Inequality in the Age of Mass Incarceration
The Review of Black Political Economy
We contend that the rise of mass incarceration in the United States can be framed through the len... more We contend that the rise of mass incarceration in the United States can be framed through the lens of stratification economics, which views race- and class-based discrimination as a rational attempt on behalf of privileged groups to preserve their relative status and the material benefits which that status confers. Using the first (to our knowledge) local-level data set on incarceration rates by race, we explore the relationship between income inequality, poverty, and incarceration at the commuting zone level from 1950 to the present. Consistent with Michelle Alexander’s hypothesis that expansion of the penal system and the rise of “tough on crime” policy were efforts by privileged groups to drive a wedge into working-class political coalitions formed out of the Civil Rights Movement, we find that labor markets with greater inequality experienced larger increases in the overall incarceration rate. Furthermore, we find that relative rates of poverty play a key role in explaining diff...
Going private: Are private prisons cost‐saving options for states?
Growth and Change
Factors Affecting School Attendance and Implications for Student Achievement by Gender in Nepal
Review of Political Economy
Decomposing U.S. Political Ideology: Local Labor Market Polarization and Race in the 2016 Presidential Election
SSRN Electronic Journal
Field Sanitation in U.S. Agriculture: Evidence from NAWS and Future Data Needs
Journal of Agromedicine
PLOS ONE
Some employers are not obligated to pay at least minimum wages to all employees. U.S. farm employ... more Some employers are not obligated to pay at least minimum wages to all employees. U.S. farm employers comprise one of these groups. Employees of large farms and H-2A workers (lawfully admitted, nonimmigrant workers performing temporary or seasonal agricultural work) are protected by minimum wage legislation, while some migrant workers (often those paid piece rates) are exempt. U.S. agriculture also is characterized by a large percentage of unauthorized workers who may or may not earn above minimum wage. Following insights from dual labor market theory and from theories of the signaling capacity of the minimum wage, we compare labor market outcomes in the agricultural sector (where minimum wage coverage is limited) to low wage/skill non-agricultural sectors (where minimum wage coverage is more complete) nationally using data from the Current Population Survey. We then extend our analysis to a detailed state-level case study of agricultural workers in California using a representative survey of employed farm workers. Results suggest wage increases for covered workers that exceed those for uncovered workers, but insignificant differences in hours worked. This is the first study to our knowledge to examine the impacts of minimum wage coverage on agricultural workers relative to other workers for the U.S.
Agricultural Youth Injuries: A Review of 2015-2017 Cases from U.S. News Media Reports
Journal of Agromedicine
Journal of Agromedicine
Background: Agricultural employment is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States... more Background: Agricultural employment is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. Workers' compensation coverage requirements for agricultural work vary from state to state, and experience modifier rates (E-mods) affecting insurance premiums sometimes vary drastically across state lines and according to claim severities and farm sizes. We proposed to develop an interactive software application that would educate farmers on the impact of employee time loss on annual E-mod factor change specific to their geographic location and farm size. Methods: We conducted a comparative analysis of workers' compensation formulations, including E-mods among Upper Midwestern states. We performed sensitivity analysis of the formulas to claim amount and payroll to highlight differences related to claim severity and to farm size. Results: The state to state variation and remarkable complexity of these formulas was confirmed. E-Mod factors are shown to increase substantially across states with both claim size and payroll, though are found to be similar across Wisconsin and Minnesota which were examined in detail. Conclusions: The findings confirm that creating a nationally applicable interactive educational software tool for farmers and ranchers to view hypothetical rate changes by inputting on-farm injury scenarios represents a significant challenge and that educational outreach coupled with the use of commercial software, especially as less costly options become available, may serve the role of minimizing misunderstandings by current producers as may other informational sources.
MIGRATION LETTERS
Traditional poverty measures are inappropriate for migrant populations. Frequently cited poverty ... more Traditional poverty measures are inappropriate for migrant populations. Frequently cited poverty thresholds are calculated under assumptions that individuals and their families face only one set of prices annually. This study formulates (and contrasts to current thresholds) alternative measures for a population that spends substantial time in two (or more) countries. Specifically, weights are developed based on annual week allocations, income, family characteristics, and comparative price levels. As illustration, an example demonstrating how alternative thresholds can be generated for those whose annual work spans international boundaries is drawn from the Mexico-US migration context using survey data, official thresholds, and these weights. Despite caveats due to data limitations for the case study, illustrations should be of interest academically and to those involved in ground-level statistical calculations pertaining to demographic trends and the welfare state.
Interracial face-to-face crimes and the socioeconomics of neighborhoods: Evidence from policing records
International Review of Law and Economics
Drug overdose and child maltreatment across the United States' rural-urban continuum
Child abuse & neglect, Jan 27, 2018
This national study of US counties (n = 2963) investigated whether county-level drug overdose mor... more This national study of US counties (n = 2963) investigated whether county-level drug overdose mortality is associated with maltreatment report rates, and whether the relationship between overdose mortality and maltreatment reports is moderated by a county's rural, non-metro or metro status. Data included county-level 2015 maltreatment reports from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, modeled drug-overdose mortality from the Centers for Disease Control, United States Department of Agriculture Rural-Urban Continuum Codes, US Census demographic data and crime reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All data were linked across counties. Zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression was used for county-level analysis. As hypothesized, results from the ZINB model showed a significant and positive relationship between drug overdose mortality and child maltreatment report rates (χ = 101.26, p < .0001). This relationship was moderated by position on the rura...
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2015
The share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States has fallen by approximatel... more The share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States has fallen by approximately 60% since the late 1990s. To explain this decline in the migration rate, we estimate annual migration-choice models using data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey for 1989-2009. On average over the last decade of the sample, one-third of the fall in the migration rate was due to changes in the demographic composition of the workforce, while twothirds was due to changes in coefficients ("structural" change). In some years, demographic changes were responsible for half of the overall change.
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2016
Recessions typically lead to excess supply in nonagricultural labor markets. However, a major rec... more Recessions typically lead to excess supply in nonagricultural labor markets. However, a major recession, like the Great Recession, has different effects in the seasonal agriculture labor market. During such recession, hourly earnings of workers, the probability that workers receive bonuses, and employed workers' weekly hours rise. These results are consistent with a large reduction in immigrant labor supply during a major recession. Direct and indirect evidence on immigration supports this conclusion.
Determinants of Child Labor in the Modern United States: Evidence from Agricultural Workers and Their Children and Concerns for Ongoing Public Policy
Governmental and economic changes in the U.S. and Mexico mean that migrant farm workers are disappearing
Study guide with practice problems for use with Microeconomics, Austan Goolsbee, Steven Levitt, Chad Syverson
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
Vocational Choices of the Legal and Illegul: The Case of Mexican Agricultural Workers in the U.S
The International Migration Review, 2009
Pesticide exposure and the physical and economic health of US crop workers
Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy
The Review of Black Political Economy
Using skill and earnings data from the OECD’s newly released Programme for the International Asse... more Using skill and earnings data from the OECD’s newly released Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and decomposition methodology from literature on economic distributions across countries, this research provides new evidence about the limited extent to which levels of and rates of return to skills explain unequal wage distributions in subgroups defined by race and ethnicity in the United States. The specific importance of PIAAC skill levels and of rates of return to skill varies substantially between racial and ethnic minorities relative to Whites and across the upper and lower parts of the wage distribution, while unobservables remain critical. These findings about differential characteristics of wage spreads are in contrast to relatively high correlations between the means of wage distributions and the more comprehensively defined skill measures observed in PIAAC (in comparison to those that have been examined in past literature), and are robust ...
Local Labor Market Inequality in the Age of Mass Incarceration
The Review of Black Political Economy
We contend that the rise of mass incarceration in the United States can be framed through the len... more We contend that the rise of mass incarceration in the United States can be framed through the lens of stratification economics, which views race- and class-based discrimination as a rational attempt on behalf of privileged groups to preserve their relative status and the material benefits which that status confers. Using the first (to our knowledge) local-level data set on incarceration rates by race, we explore the relationship between income inequality, poverty, and incarceration at the commuting zone level from 1950 to the present. Consistent with Michelle Alexander’s hypothesis that expansion of the penal system and the rise of “tough on crime” policy were efforts by privileged groups to drive a wedge into working-class political coalitions formed out of the Civil Rights Movement, we find that labor markets with greater inequality experienced larger increases in the overall incarceration rate. Furthermore, we find that relative rates of poverty play a key role in explaining diff...
Going private: Are private prisons cost‐saving options for states?
Growth and Change
Factors Affecting School Attendance and Implications for Student Achievement by Gender in Nepal
Review of Political Economy
Decomposing U.S. Political Ideology: Local Labor Market Polarization and Race in the 2016 Presidential Election
SSRN Electronic Journal
Field Sanitation in U.S. Agriculture: Evidence from NAWS and Future Data Needs
Journal of Agromedicine
PLOS ONE
Some employers are not obligated to pay at least minimum wages to all employees. U.S. farm employ... more Some employers are not obligated to pay at least minimum wages to all employees. U.S. farm employers comprise one of these groups. Employees of large farms and H-2A workers (lawfully admitted, nonimmigrant workers performing temporary or seasonal agricultural work) are protected by minimum wage legislation, while some migrant workers (often those paid piece rates) are exempt. U.S. agriculture also is characterized by a large percentage of unauthorized workers who may or may not earn above minimum wage. Following insights from dual labor market theory and from theories of the signaling capacity of the minimum wage, we compare labor market outcomes in the agricultural sector (where minimum wage coverage is limited) to low wage/skill non-agricultural sectors (where minimum wage coverage is more complete) nationally using data from the Current Population Survey. We then extend our analysis to a detailed state-level case study of agricultural workers in California using a representative survey of employed farm workers. Results suggest wage increases for covered workers that exceed those for uncovered workers, but insignificant differences in hours worked. This is the first study to our knowledge to examine the impacts of minimum wage coverage on agricultural workers relative to other workers for the U.S.
Agricultural Youth Injuries: A Review of 2015-2017 Cases from U.S. News Media Reports
Journal of Agromedicine
Journal of Agromedicine
Background: Agricultural employment is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States... more Background: Agricultural employment is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. Workers' compensation coverage requirements for agricultural work vary from state to state, and experience modifier rates (E-mods) affecting insurance premiums sometimes vary drastically across state lines and according to claim severities and farm sizes. We proposed to develop an interactive software application that would educate farmers on the impact of employee time loss on annual E-mod factor change specific to their geographic location and farm size. Methods: We conducted a comparative analysis of workers' compensation formulations, including E-mods among Upper Midwestern states. We performed sensitivity analysis of the formulas to claim amount and payroll to highlight differences related to claim severity and to farm size. Results: The state to state variation and remarkable complexity of these formulas was confirmed. E-Mod factors are shown to increase substantially across states with both claim size and payroll, though are found to be similar across Wisconsin and Minnesota which were examined in detail. Conclusions: The findings confirm that creating a nationally applicable interactive educational software tool for farmers and ranchers to view hypothetical rate changes by inputting on-farm injury scenarios represents a significant challenge and that educational outreach coupled with the use of commercial software, especially as less costly options become available, may serve the role of minimizing misunderstandings by current producers as may other informational sources.
MIGRATION LETTERS
Traditional poverty measures are inappropriate for migrant populations. Frequently cited poverty ... more Traditional poverty measures are inappropriate for migrant populations. Frequently cited poverty thresholds are calculated under assumptions that individuals and their families face only one set of prices annually. This study formulates (and contrasts to current thresholds) alternative measures for a population that spends substantial time in two (or more) countries. Specifically, weights are developed based on annual week allocations, income, family characteristics, and comparative price levels. As illustration, an example demonstrating how alternative thresholds can be generated for those whose annual work spans international boundaries is drawn from the Mexico-US migration context using survey data, official thresholds, and these weights. Despite caveats due to data limitations for the case study, illustrations should be of interest academically and to those involved in ground-level statistical calculations pertaining to demographic trends and the welfare state.
Interracial face-to-face crimes and the socioeconomics of neighborhoods: Evidence from policing records
International Review of Law and Economics
Drug overdose and child maltreatment across the United States' rural-urban continuum
Child abuse & neglect, Jan 27, 2018
This national study of US counties (n = 2963) investigated whether county-level drug overdose mor... more This national study of US counties (n = 2963) investigated whether county-level drug overdose mortality is associated with maltreatment report rates, and whether the relationship between overdose mortality and maltreatment reports is moderated by a county's rural, non-metro or metro status. Data included county-level 2015 maltreatment reports from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, modeled drug-overdose mortality from the Centers for Disease Control, United States Department of Agriculture Rural-Urban Continuum Codes, US Census demographic data and crime reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All data were linked across counties. Zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression was used for county-level analysis. As hypothesized, results from the ZINB model showed a significant and positive relationship between drug overdose mortality and child maltreatment report rates (χ = 101.26, p < .0001). This relationship was moderated by position on the rura...
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2015
The share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States has fallen by approximatel... more The share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States has fallen by approximately 60% since the late 1990s. To explain this decline in the migration rate, we estimate annual migration-choice models using data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey for 1989-2009. On average over the last decade of the sample, one-third of the fall in the migration rate was due to changes in the demographic composition of the workforce, while twothirds was due to changes in coefficients ("structural" change). In some years, demographic changes were responsible for half of the overall change.
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2016
Recessions typically lead to excess supply in nonagricultural labor markets. However, a major rec... more Recessions typically lead to excess supply in nonagricultural labor markets. However, a major recession, like the Great Recession, has different effects in the seasonal agriculture labor market. During such recession, hourly earnings of workers, the probability that workers receive bonuses, and employed workers' weekly hours rise. These results are consistent with a large reduction in immigrant labor supply during a major recession. Direct and indirect evidence on immigration supports this conclusion.
Determinants of Child Labor in the Modern United States: Evidence from Agricultural Workers and Their Children and Concerns for Ongoing Public Policy
Governmental and economic changes in the U.S. and Mexico mean that migrant farm workers are disappearing
Study guide with practice problems for use with Microeconomics, Austan Goolsbee, Steven Levitt, Chad Syverson
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.