David's Posts

It has been a busy week for sure with Homecoming and the Potato Bowl parade here at the University of North Dakota. The Department of Economics & Finance also hosted two presentations by Robert Hall of Stanford, one of a research paper for the faculty and graduate students, and one to the University community at large. Along with that I wrapped up a proposal for a paper presentation at the Population Association of American meetings in 2019 on the oil boom in North Dakota and county level fertility rates. So really busy. 

Continue reading Busy Week & Switching to Gutenberg
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Numerous callers over the past few weeks mentioned that age increases are not really keeping pace with inflation. This is something mentioned significantly at the national level too. As a result I used the CPI to adjust the wage data from the post last (found here) week about wage comparisons to get a sense of the curve shapes after the adjustment. I put them all in terms of 200Q4 level. The adjustment is the same for the different regions so there is not added value in the comparison of the different regions really, it is more the comparison of the nominal and real values.

Continue reading ND wage comparisons adjusted for inflation

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The radio audience really responded to the topics of income and wages the last few weeks. Along with the population posts (which I confess I find more interesting) I include another look at wages. I grabbed the data for goods producing and service providing jobs in three North Dakota counties: Cass, Grand Forks, and Williams. Nothing necessarily scientific about the county selection, just three that I know and that will likely give us something to ponder. 

Continue reading Some North Dakota Wage Comparisons

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Replacement was another idea we talked about in the population analysis class this week. Essentially it is an estimate of the deaths and migratory outflows from the area over a specified period of time and is called replacement because it is what you would need to replace in order for population to remain the same. Not really terribly complicated, but it is a nice complement to the idea of turnover and I generated both the level and the rate for counties in North Dakota.

Continue reading Population Replacement in North Dakota

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I am teaching population analysis to the undergraduates this year which is a first for me and them. We talked about the simple calculation of growth rates and how population change is actually more complicated and subtle than an overall population growth rate. This got us to the idea of turnover, that is just measuring the births, deaths, inflows, and outflows that go into the changing population. Basically just seeing how much is changing compared to the overall population level. So I thought I would have some fun and apply this to North Dakota. This could be especially important given that some North Dakota counties experienced high degrees of population change due to economic circumstances.

Continue reading Population Turnover in North Dakota

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