Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Investigating the Impact of the Civilian Conservation Corps Program on Health and Human Capital

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This project aims at investigating the impacts of one of the New Deal employment programs during the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which employed young adults from impoverished families as conservation workers in national and state parks. Due to the remote location of the CCC jobs, participants had to move away from their homes in cities and into camps run by military officers. Narrative evidence suggests that living in these camps led to long-run health and career changes for participants. Though a large literature in labor economics has examined various work programs and subsequent impacts on employment, few studies have examined a program that was implemented on such a large scale. This research is the first to analyze long-run impacts of a large-scale unemployment relief program. This project will provide greater insight into the impact of work training programs and mobility during the Great Depression. Moreover, the project will inform policies regarding national work programs, particularly for periods of economic downturns.The investigator will examine the effect of CCC participation on human capital attainment, migration, and health by analyzing a novel dataset. This dataset will be composed of personnel records from the Civilian Conservation Corps and individual records from both the 1930 and 1940 US censuses. The 20% sample of the 1930 census will provide a control group to provide counterfactual outcomes for CCC enrollees. Both CCC enrollees and this control group from 1930 will be matched to the 1940 census so that post-CCC outcomes can be observed. Using this dataset, the investigator will estimate treatment effects of CCC participation to examine the following questions: Did the CCC influence migration across the country? Did participation in the CCC improve participant's subsequent careers? Were participants able to achieve more than they would have without the CCC?