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

该项目旨在调查大萧条时期新政就业项目之一——平民保护队（CCC）的影响，该项目雇用来自贫困家庭的年轻人担任国家公园和州立公园的保护工作者。由于CCC工作地点偏远，参与者不得不离开他们在城市的家，进入由军官管理的营地。叙述性证据表明，生活在这些营地导致参与者的长期健康和职业变化。尽管大量的劳动经济学文献研究了各种工作计划及其对就业的影响，但很少有研究调查了如此大规模实施的计划。这项研究首次分析了大规模失业救济计划的长期影响。该项目将对大萧条时期工作培训项目和流动性的影响提供更深入的了解。此外，该项目将为有关国家工作计划的政策提供信息，特别是在经济低迷时期。研究者将通过分析一个新的数据集来检验CCC参与对人力资本获得、迁移和健康的影响。该数据集将由民间保护队的个人记录和1930年和1940年美国人口普查的个人记录组成。1930年人口普查的20%样本将提供一个对照组，为CCC入选者提供反事实结果。CCC入选者和1930年的对照组将与1940年的人口普查相匹配，以便观察CCC后的结果。使用此数据集，研究者将估计参与CCC的治疗效果，以检查以下问题：CCC是否影响全国范围内的移民？参加CCC是否改善了参与者随后的职业生涯？参与者是否能够取得比没有CCC时更多的成就？

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?