Rachel Inafuku
The Hawaii Housing Factbook 2024
The past year has brought significant shocks to the housing market in Hawai‘i. In 2023, only one in five local households could afford a mortgage on the median-priced single-family home in the state. High interest rates make it difficult to finance a home purchase, difficult for developers to finance new construction, and disrupts the filtering […]
Read MoreThe Gender Pay Gap in Hawaii
By Rachel Inafuku In recognition of International Women’s Day, which was recently celebrated on March 8, UHERO wishes to underscore the importance of women in the workforce by highlighting research on the gender pay gap in Hawaii that was presented in our latest forecast report. Please keep an eye out for forthcoming research that explores […]
Read MoreWhy College Is Worth the Investment: Estimating the Returns to a College Degree from the University of Hawai`i system
By Tim Halliday and Rachel Inafuku Read the full report. Across the nation, the cost of higher education has significantly increased over the past 20 years [1]. The surge in tuition prompted the Biden Administration’s plan to forgive $39 billion in student loan debt for approximately 800,000 borrowers. The ongoing concerns regarding college affordability have […]
Read MoreEstimating the Returns to Higher Education Using Administrative Data: A Case Study of the University of Hawai`i System
What is the value of a degree from the University of Hawai`i (UH)? While college tuition has significantly increasednationally, tuition within the UH system has become more affordable over the last ten years when adjusted for inflation. Despite this improved affordability, college enrollment rates among Hawai‘i’s public school graduates have declined since the COVID-19 pandemic, […]
Read MoreAfter the Maui wildfires: The road ahead.
By Steven Bond-Smith, Daniela Bond-Smith, Carl Bonham, Leah Bremer, Kim Burnett, Makena Coffman, Peter Fuleky, Byron Gangnes, Rachel Inafuku, Ruben Juarez, Sumner La Croix, Colin Moore, Dylan Moore, Nori Tarui, Justin Tyndall, and Chris Wada The immediate recovery efforts from the devastating Maui wildfires continue, and at UHERO we share our community’s anguish over the […]
Read MoreOnly the fit survive recessions: Estimating labor market penalties for the obese over the business cycle
Abstract: The obesity epidemic is a growing concern in the United States. Aside from the detrimental health effects of obesity, previous work has also documented a negative relationship between obesity and various labor market outcomes. Given that the American adult obesity rate is roughly 40%, obesity affects a large portion of the US labor market. […]
Read MoreThe Hawai‘i Housing Factbook
Residents of Hawai‘i face the highest housing costs in the nation. High housing costs lower the standard of living for residents and hinder the State’s ability to attract workers. Some households are forced to live in crowded conditions, some leave the state to find housing elsewhere, and some are forced to survive without housing at […]
Read MoreShort-term Vacation Rentals and Housing Costs in Hawaiʻi
By Rachel Inafuku and Justin Tyndall Of the state’s 565,000 total housing units, 30,000 are listed as Short-term Vacation Rentals (STRs), meaning roughly 5% of local housing units operate as tourist accommodations. In a tight housing market with high prices and barriers to creating new supply, removing supply from the long-term housing market could harm […]
Read MoreVOG – Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Impact of Pollutants on Learning Outcomes
By Rachel Inafuku. Joint research with Tim Halliday, Lester Lusher and Aureo de Paula. Introduction While an extensive number of studies have shown that pollution is detrimental to human health, a smaller, growing body of literature has found that pollution also negatively impacts cognitive performance. Research has shown that increases in pollutants lead to decreased […]
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