Understanding Rural Identities and Environmental Policy Attitudes in America

Attitudinal differences between urban and rural voters in America have been in the spotlight in recent years and engaging rural populations politically has been growing in importance, particularly since the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, social and geographic sorting is increasing the salience of a rural identity that drives distinct policy preferences. While recent research has examined how rural identities drive social and economic policy preferences, rural Americans are also particularly relevant to the fate of environmental policy. Farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners manage huge portions of American lands and watersheds and are important stakeholders in the implementation of environmental policies. Despite this, the environmental policy preferences of rural Americans have received little attention from the research community. This study fills a gap in the literature by investigating how collective identities among rural Americans drive environmental policy preferences. Through eight focus groups and thirty-five interviews with rural voters across America (total n=105), this study explores how four components of rural American identity—connection to nature, resentment/disenfranchisement, rootedness, and self-reliance—inform specific rural perspectives on environmental policy. The findings have implications for how to best design, communicate, and implement environmental policies in a way that can better engage rural Americans on this issue.

Confederate Streets and Black-White Labor Market Differentials

Using a unique dataset, this paper examines the extent to which streets named after prominent Confederate generals are related to Black-White labor market differentials. Examining individual-level data shows that Blacks who reside in areas that have a relatively higher number of Confederate streets are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be employed in low-status occupations, and have lower wages compared to Whites. I find no evidence that individual characteristics, local characteristics, or geographic sorting explain these results.

Economic persistence despite adverse policies: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan

We study the long-run persistence of relative economic well-being under adverse government policies using a combination of historical and contemporaneous data from Kyrgyzstan. After controlling for unobservable local effects, the economic well-being of Kyrgyz households in the 2010s correlates with the early 20th-century average wealth of their tribes. Inequality at the tribe level in the 2010s correlates with wealth inequality in the early 20th century. The likely channels of persistence are the inter-generational transmission of human capital, relative status, political power, and cultural traits. Transmission of material wealth, differences in natural endowments, or geographic sorting cannot explain persistence.

Legacies of the Third Reich: Concentration Camps and Out-group Intolerance

We explore the long-term political consequences of the Third Reich and show that current political intolerance, xenophobia, and voting for radical right-wing parties are associated with proximity to former Nazi concentration camps in Germany. This relationship is not explained by contemporary attitudes, the location of the camps, geographic sorting, the economic impact of the camps, or their current use. We argue that cognitive dissonance led those more directly exposed to Nazi institutions to conform with the belief system of the regime. These attitudes were then transmitted across generations. The evidence provided here contributes both to our understanding of the legacies of historical institutions and the sources of political intolerance.

When Voters Matter: The Limits of Local Government Responsiveness

I use over-time variation resulting from geographic sorting to estimate the impact of local preferences on local policy. Building a new panel data set of county-level voting behavior and county-level policy choices, I find a causal impact of changes in preferences on changes in policy. However, this responsiveness is not unlimited. While public safety and infrastructure spending respond, policies more constrained by state laws do not; and while general purpose government spending is responsive, school and special district spending are not. These results corroborate recent evidence of local responsiveness using a more extensive sample, and a research design that rules out many alternative explanations. They also reveal many local policies to be unresponsive due to state-imposed constraints.

The role of strategic reports and subjective admission beliefs in explaining the ‘ethnic admissions gap’ in English secondary schools

Data from the English secondary school admissions cycle reveals a substantial ethnic gap in the proportion accessing their chosen schools. Children from minority ethnic groups are, on average, 17% less likely to be admitted into their top-ranked secondary school, compared to white children. This gap is large even after controlling for socio-economic status and prior attainment. However, constraints on the length of preference lists mean that stated preferences may not be truthful, as parents may have incentives to strategise by excluding preferred schools. By accounting for strategic stated preferences and biased beliefs about chances of admission, this paper recovers parametric estimates of preference parameters and the degree of strategic selection. To examine the relative contribution of geographic sorting, strategies, and market design (mechanism and admission rules), the corrected revealed preference estimates are used to estimate expected welfare under three scenarios. The analysis reveals that both underlying preferences and strategising behaviour exhibit substantial heterogeneity by ethnicity, income and ability. When comparing welfare, I find that differences in admissions priority between white and minority ethnic families create small but significant and consistent differences in welfare. However, larger welfare differences are due to differences in preferences and strategy between the two groups.

The Determinants and Welfare Implications of US Workers' Diverging Location Choices by Skill: 1980–2000

From 1980 to 2000, the rise in the US college/high school graduate wage gap coincided with increased geographic sorting as college graduates concentrated in high wage, high rent cities. This paper estimates a structural spatial equilibrium model to determine causes and welfare consequences of this increased skill sorting. While local labor demand changes fundamentally caused the increased skill sorting, it was further fueled by endogenous increases in amenities within higher skill cities. Changes in cities' wages, rents, and endogenous amenities increased inequality between high school and college graduates by more than suggested by the increase in the college wage gap alone. (JEL D31, I26, J24, J31, J61, R23)