Essays in applied microeconomics: Education and environmental resources

My dissertation consists of three papers: two on education in the United States from 1850 to 2000 and one on the growth of land trusts across the United States from 1929 to 1998. Coauthored with Chad Turner, Chapter 2 presents new data on annual average years of schooling and per capita incomes at the state level of the United States from 1840 to 2000. We calculate years of schooling based on enrollment data. Consistent with results found in other labor research, we estimate that one additional year of schooling increased income by between 8 percent and 15 percent, with a point estimate close to 9 percent. Chapter 3 attempts to calculate the probability a student will disrupt the classroom by analyzing the joint teacher-salary/class-size equilibrium from 1880 to 2000. I find that the probability a student behaves has fallen over time and that, the average high school graduate in the 1990s lost about 14 days of instruction due to student disruption. Finally, Chapter 4 develops a positive theory to explain the growth of the local and regional non-profit land-use conservation movement. This movement is spearheaded by organizations, commonly referred to as land trusts, that are becoming the instrument of choice for those wishing to protect open space, farmland, watersheds, and other natural features of the landscape. I show that the growth of the land trust movement has been due to several factors: increases in real income, private easement-enabling legislation, the loss of farmland, and FOIA and Sunshine laws.