Seth is a scientific advisor to research contracts as well as conducting independent research at NORC. He has 30 years of experience conducting interdisciplinary research and leading organizations that facilitate such research. He is a labor economist and economic demographer with wide interests and expertise. He has written extensively on minority populations in the U.S. economy and the factors that limit and facilitate success with a focus on the unfolding of disadvantage over the life-cycle. He also has written on all aspects of demography including fertility, mortality and immigration. His recent work focuses on issues of data quality and on methods to mitigate the effects of measurement error in statistical analysis. Besides expertise on the collection and use of panel data, he was an early innovator and contributor to constructing large matched administrative data sets for research purposes.
His independent research at NORC investigates the use of paradata from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and the National Social Health and Aging Project (NSHAP) to measure cognition and cognitive aging.
Seth has published extensively in the top journals in Economics and Demography. He has been the recipient of numerous awards from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Among these were funding for Population Centers at the University of Maryland and Duke University; and funding to develop strategies to link the 1940 Census to modern survey and administrative data at the Census Bureau. His interest in the long shadow of early life disadvantage is reflected in his teaching at Cornell University where his course traces out the 400 year history of race in the American labor market.
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Education
PhD
University of Chicago
MA
University of Chicago
BS
University of Chicago
Appointments & Affiliations
Ronald G. Ehrenberg Chaired Professor of Economics
Department of Economics, Cornell University
Professor of Economics
Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University
Research Fellow
IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Honors & Awards
R01 Research Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development | 2017 - 2022
“The Heterogeneous Effects of Education on Health and Productivity.”
R21 Research Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development | 2017 - 2019
"Using Response Time Data from Social Science Surveys to Model Behavioral Outcomes, 2016-2018”
AS Research Grant from the National Institute of Aging | 2017 - 2018
"Using Response Time Data from Social Science Surveys to Model Behavioral Outcomes”
R21 Research Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development | 2016 - 2018
“Constructing Life Course and Intergenerational Data Through Census Data Linkages”
Project Contributions
Publications
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opens in new tab"The Impact of Female Teachers on Female Students' Lifetime Well-Being."
Working Paper | September 15, 2022
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opens in new tab"Human Capital Investment."
Book | December 17, 2020
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opens in new tab"Deconstructing Bias in Social Preferences Reveals Groupy and Not-Groupy Behavior."
Journal Article | August 24, 2020
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opens in new tab"Groupy versus Non-Groupy Social Preferences: Personality, Region, and Political Party."
Journal Article | May 19, 2020
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opens in new tab"The Methuselah Effect: The Pernicious Impact of Unreported Deaths on Old-Age Mortality Estimates."
Journal Article | December 4, 2017
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opens in new tab"Combining Forward and Backward Mortality Estimation."
Journal Article | June 23, 2017
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opens in new tab"Exploring the Racial Divide in Education and the Labor Market through Evidence from Interracial Families."
Journal Article | June 17, 2015
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opens in new tab"The Impact of the Great Migration on Mortality of African Americans: Evidence from the Deep South."
Journal Article | March 17, 2015