Books
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Journal Articles
Abstract:
In 2005, Missouri and Tennessee tightened eligibility for their public health insurance programs, resulting in widespread coverage losses. Leveraging county-level variation in subsequent disenrollment, I show that voters in Tennessee punished the incumbent governor for the Medicaid cuts. In Missouri, by contrast, disenrollment had no impact on the subsequent gubernatorial election but did increase support for Democrats in 2006 state legislative elections, possibly due to the strategic entry and exit of candidates. In both states, the loss of Medicaid coverage was associated with lower support for Democratic presidential candidates, although these declines appear part of a longer-term trend that preceded the coverage loss. The results speak to the potential political costs of welfare spending cuts and the electoral consequences of reducing income-targeted social programs.
Abstract:
Over the past two years, the nation’s school boards have had to grapple with one thorny controversy after another. Local news reports, op-ed pages, and viral social-media posts have featured outraged parents and advocates protesting the presence of armed police officers in schools, the use of entrance exams for selective programs, mask mandates for in-person learning, and allegations that Critical Race Theory was infiltrating the K-12 curriculum. The events of the past two years underscore a question that has long been a subject of debate among education-policy researchers and reformers: Is our school-governance model — featuring decentralized control and locally elected school boards — the most effective and efficient approach to educating America’s youth? In a seminal book published 30 years ago, Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, John Chubb and Terry Moe argued that it is not. Presaging many of the dynamics on display recently, Chubb and Moe warned that institutions of democratic control — meaning locally elected school boards — often fail in carrying out their core missions, instead empowering vocal and well-organized adults at the expense of the educational needs and interests of students, who do not get a vote in local elections. With three decades of additional evidence and the pandemic still disrupting business as usual in our schools, now is an opportune time to revisit their arguments. Much has changed in the education world over the past 30 years, and new data sources and research methods have revealed the inner workings of local democracy in much greater detail than was possible when the book was written. Nevertheless, Chubb and Moe’s conclusions have aged surprisingly well. Their central thesis — that local democracy fails to incentivize pivotal policymakers to give priority to students’ academic needs — has been confirmed by a growing body of research on school-board elections.
Abstract:
We conduct a randomized control trial to assess the efficacy of utilizing modified introductory language in student evaluations of instruction to mitigate implicit bias. Students are randomly assigned within courses to three treatment arms and shown so-called “cheap talk” scripts referencing implicit bias, the high stakes associated with student evaluations, and the combination of the two. We analyze both the impact assignment of the treatment has on completion rates as well as the effect on average instructor rating. Our analysis indicates assignment has statistically significant effects on the likelihood of response for those assigned the combined treatment, though the effects are heterogeneous with respect to both instructor and student race/ethnicity and gender. We further find the high-stakes treatment leads to higher average scores for racial/ethnic minority instructors with no significant effects from the implicit bias and combined scripts.
Abstract:
Low and uneven turnout is a serious problem for local democracy. Fortunately, one simple reform — shifting the timing of local elections so they are held on the same day as national contests — can substantially increase participation. Considerable research shows that on-cycle November elections generally double local voter turnout compared to stand-alone local contests. But does higher turnout mean a more representative electorate? On that critical question, the evidence is slim and mixed. We combine information on election timing with detailed micro-targeting data that includes voter demographic information to examine how election timing influences voter composition in city elections. We find that moving to on-cycle elections in California leads to an electorate that is considerably more representative in terms of race, age, and partisanship — especially when these local elections coincide with a presidential election. Our results suggest that on-cycle elections can improve local democracy.
Abstract:
At last count, U.S. voters were responsible for directly electing more than 510,000 public officials. Few of these contests feature lively campaigns or attract substantial media attention, often leaving the average voter to make decisions with limited information. We argue that the cognitive strategies voters use to make decisions in these low-information contests depend in part on the design of their ballots — in particular, the presence or absence of partisan labels. Using two “Who Said What?” experiments, we show that voters engage in social categorization — and do so on the basis of race and ethnicity when candidates differ in their demographic background. We also find, however, that the availability of party labels shapes the degree to which voters categorize candidates based on their race and ethnicity. A central implication of our results is that efforts to increase minority representation should look beyond electoral institutions — such as district versus at-large elections — to the structure of the ballot itself.
Abstract:
Political scientists have largely overlooked the democratic challenges inherent in the governance of U.S. public education — despite profound implications for educational delivery and, ultimately, social mobility and economic growth. In this study, we consider whether the interests of adult voters who elect school boards in each community are likely to be aligned with the educational needs of local students. Specifically, we compare voters and students in four states on several policy-relevant dimensions. Using official voter turnout records and rich microtargeting data, we document considerable demographic differences between voters who participate in school board elections and the students attending the schools that boards oversee. These gaps are most pronounced in majority nonwhite jurisdictions and school districts with the largest racial achievement gaps. Our novel analysis provides important context for understanding the political pressures facing school boards and their likely role in perpetuating educational and, ultimately, societal inequality.
Abstract:
We employ a regression discontinuity design leveraging close school board elections to investigate how the racial and ethnic composition of California school boards affects school district administration and student achievement. We find some evidence that increases in minority representation lead to cumulative achievement gains of approximately 0.1 standard deviations among minority students by the sixth post-election year. These gains do not come at the expense of white students’ academic performance, which also appears to improve. Turning to the policy mechanisms that may explain these effects, we find that an increase in minority representation leads to greater capital funding and an increase in the proportion of district principals who are non-white. We find no significant effects of minority representation on school segregation, the reclassfication of English Language Learners, or teacher staffing.
Abstract:
Jurisdictional competition can encourage government efficiency but may also lead to collective action problems (e.g., bidding wars) that increase taxpayer costs. The net effect is particularly consequential for the cost of public employee compensation, which accounts for more than half of local government spending. Examining two decades of U.S. teacher salary data and changes in local teacher labor markets over time, I show that jurisdictional competition is associated with lower teacher salaries. One mechanism consistent with the evidence is that competitive markets help encourage lower spending through “yardstick competition.” The findings may help explain why government consolidations designed to promote economies of scale and efforts to take advantage of coordinated buying power do not always produce the expected savings.
Abstract:
Growing evidence suggests that pocketbook considerations influence voting behavior in the U.S. and other developed countries and that incumbents can use targeted government benefits to win voter support. It remains unclear whether the general relationship between government spending and incumbent support also holds for means-tested welfare programs, however. I contribute to this empirical literature by taking advantage of the decade-long rollout of the American Food Stamp Program. The staggered timing of local program implementation allows me to credibly estimate the causal effect of this new benefit on election outcomes. Overall, I find that Democrats — at the center of the program’s enacting coalition — gained votes when the program was implemented locally, apparently through mobilization of new supporters rather than the conversion of political opponents.
Abstract:
We use close tax elections to estimate the impact of school district funding increases on operational spending and student outcomes across seven states. Districts with passing levies directed new revenue toward support services and instructor salaries but did not increase teacher staffing levels. These districts eventually realized gains in student achievement and attainment. Our preferred estimates imply that increasing operational spending by $1,000 per pupil increased test scores by approximately 0.15 of a standard deviation and graduation rates by approximately 9 percentage points. There is some evidence of diminishing returns, as these effects are driven by districts below the median in spending per pupil. Based on research linking academic outcomes to earnings, we conclude that these spending increases were likely cost-effective.
Abstract:
Governments around the world have privatized public services in the name of efficiency and citizen empowerment, but some argue that privatization could also affect citizen participation in democratic governance. We explore this possibility by estimating the impact of charter schools (which are publicly funded but privately operated) on school district elections. The analysis indicates that the enrollment of district students in charter schools reduced the number of votes cast in district school board contests and, correspondingly, reduced turnout in the odd-year elections in which those contests are held. This impact is concentrated in districts that serve low-achieving, impoverished, and minority students, leading to a modest decline in the share of voters in those districts who are black and who have children. There is little evidence that charter school expansion affected the outcomes of school board elections or turnout in other elections.
Abstract:
There is considerable debate about how election timing shapes who votes, election outcomes, and, ultimately, public policy. We examine these matters by combining information on more than 10,000 school tax referenda with detailed micro-targeting data on voters participating in each election. The analysis confirms that timing influences voter composition in terms of partisanship, ideology, and the numerical strength of powerful interest groups. But, in contrast to prominent theories of election timing, these effects are modest in terms of their likely impact on election outcomes. Instead, timing has the most significant impact on voter age, with the elderly being the most over-represented group in low-turnout special elections. The electoral (and policy) implications of this effect vary between states, and we offer one explanation for this variation.
Abstract:
States legislatures across the country have, in recent years, acted repeatedly to block, undo, and overrule policies adopted by local governments. Understanding these dynamics requires paying attention to the means, motives, and opportunities of both elected officials and strategic policy entrepreneurs. Although they might not admit so publicly, both Democrats and Republicans earn tangible political dividends from prominent state-local conflict. For this reason, we can expect the battles to rage on for the foreseeable future.
Abstract:
Delegation of administrative authority is commonly thought to involve a tradeoff between the discretion necessary for bureaucratic effectiveness and democratic responsiveness. In many contexts, however, discretion and responsiveness go hand-in-hand: Street-level bureaucrats may adapt their behavior to accommodate local norms and values, even when implementing identical statutory language. I argue that this type of bureaucratic adaptation can explain local variation in participation rates in the national food stamp program. By exploiting between-state differences in the level at which the program is administered, I further show that administrative centralization does not appear to moderate such responsiveness, which is high across institutional settings. Using data on application denial rates for a subset of these states, I offer additional evidence that some of the county-level variation in program participation is a product of decisions made by local case workers. Together, these findings offer important insights on the institutional preconditions for bureaucratic responsiveness and control.
Abstract:
Direct democracy is often touted as a means of reining in the administrative state, but it could also hinder the performance of public organizations. In particular, we argue that bargaining dynamics between voters and government officials can lead to costly administrative disruptions. We explore this issue by estimating the impact of Ohio tax referenda on school district administration using a regression discontinuity approach. The results suggest that administrators in districts where referenda failed sought to insulate core functions from revenue declines. Nonetheless, referendum failure (as opposed to passage) led to lower instructional spending, teacher attrition, and lower student achievement growth. Spending and performance generally rebounded within a few years, however, as districts eventually secured approval for a subsequent tax proposal. These results illustrate how involving citizens in decision-making can entail short-term transaction costs in the form of decreased administrative performance, which in this case likely had lasting achievement effects for students attending school in the wake of a referendum failure.
Abstract:
Why do legislative parties emerge in democracies where elections are contested by individual candidates, rather than national party organizations? And can parties survive in the absence electoral pressure for their members to work on shared political goals? In this paper, we examine the emergence and maintenance of party discipline in an atypical legislative context: California’s 1878-79 constitutional convention. The unusual partisan alignments among the delegates at the California convention provide us with a unique empirical opportunity to test election- and policy-based explanations for legislative discipline. Our study combines a careful reading of the historical record with a statistical analysis of roll call votes cast at the convention to show how leaders of the “Nonpartisan” majority held together their disparate coalition of Democratic and Republican members in the face of conflicting preferences, ideological divisions, and well-organized political opponents. Our findings provide evidence that cohesive parties can exist even in the absence of broadly shared electoral pressures or policy goals.
Abstract:
The distribution of income lies at the intersection of states and markets, both influencing and responding to government policy. Reflecting this reality, increasing research focuses on the political origins of inequality in the U.S. However, the literature largely assumes — rather than tests — the political mechanisms thought to affect the income gap. This study provides a timely reassessment of one such mechanism. Leveraging variation in labor laws between states and differences in the timing of adoption of right-to-work legislation, I examine one political mechanism blamed by many for contributing to inequality. Using a variety of panel designs, I find little evidence that RTW laws have been major cause of growing income inequality, pointing to the importance of grounding theoretical arguments about the interrelationships between states and markets in a sound empirical reality.
Abstract:
By conditioning their support for political incumbents on observed performance outcomes, voters can motivate elected officials to represent their interests faithfully while in office. Whether elections serve this function in sub-national U.S. government remains unclear, however, because much of the existing research on retrospective voting in these contexts focuses on outcomes that are not obviously salient to voters or over which the relevant government officials have limited influence. In this study, we examine one outcome — the quality of local roads — that is both salient and unquestionably under the control of city government. Our analysis leverages within-city variation in the number of pothole complaints in one of America’s largest cities and shows that such variation can explain neighborhood-level differences in support for incumbents in two political offices — mayor and city council — across several electoral cycles.
Abstract:
Public education has been transformed by the widespread adoption of accountability systems that involve the dissemination of school district performance information. Using data from Ohio, we examine if elections serve as one channel through which these accountability systems might lead to improvements in educational quality. We find little evidence that poor performance on widely disseminated state and federal indicators has an impact on school board turnover, the vote share of sitting school board members, or superintendent tenure, suggesting that the dissemination of district performance information puts little (if any) electoral pressure on elected officials to improve student achievement.
Abstract:
Direct democracy is sometimes described as a “gun behind the door,'” but how do legislators react when voters pull the trigger? Leveraging the high-profile referendum defeat of a controversial law passed by the Ohio legislature, I examine how legislators respond to voter disaffection. Using interest groups to “bridge” votes before and after the election, I show that the measure’s defeat induced moderation on the part of the Republican legislative majority, while leaving the behavior of opposition Democrats largely unchanged. The results suggest that direct democracy has the potential to restrain legislative excesses and alleviate polarization in state legislatures.
Abstract:
Federal governments are increasingly employing empirical measures of lower-level government performance to ensure that provincial and local jurisdictions pursue national policy goals. We call this burgeoning phenomenon performance federalism and argue that it can distort democratic accountability in lower-level elections. We estimate the impact of a widely publicized federal indicator of local school district performance — one that we show does not allow voters to draw valid inferences about the quality of local educational institutions — on voter support for school tax levies in a U.S. state uniquely appropriate for this analysis. The results indicate that a federal signal of poor district performance increases the probability of levy failure — a substantively large and robust effect that disproportionately affects impoverished communities. The analysis employs a number of identification strategies and tests for multiple behavioral mechanisms to support the causal interpretation of these findings.
Abstract:
Are city governments capable of responding to the preferences of their constituents? Or is the menu of policy options determined by forces beyond their direct control? We answer these questions using the most comprehensive cross-sectional database linking voter preferences to local policy outcomes in more than 2,000 mid-size cities and a new panel covering cities in two states. Overall, our analysis paints an encouraging picture of democracy in the city: We document substantial variation in local fiscal policy outcomes and provide evidence that voter preferences help explain why cities adopt different policies. As they become more Democratic, cities increase their spending across a number of service areas. In addition, voter sentiment shapes the other side of the ledger, determining the level and precise mix of revenues on which cities rely. In short, we show that cities respond both to competitive pressures and the needs and wants of their constituents.
Abstract:
Some proponents of municipal election reform advocate for the adoption of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), a method that allows voters to rank multiple candidates according to their preferences. Although supporters claim that IRV is superior to the traditional primary-runoff election system, research on IRV is limited. We analyze data taken from images of more than 600,000 ballots cast by voters in four recent local elections. We document a problem known as ballot “exhaustion,” which results in a substantial number of votes being discarded in each election. As a result of ballot exhaustion, the winner in all four of our cases receives less than a majority of the total votes cast, a finding that raises serious concerns about IRV and challenges a key argument made by the system’s proponents.
Abstract:
Under what conditions can political elites influence elections to favor their preferred policy outcomes by strategically crafting the language printed on the ballot? Drawing on psychological and political theories of voter cognition, we design a survey experiment to assess the degree to which ballot text can influence voter behavior in direct democracy elections and identify factors that may moderate such effects. We show that the language used to describe a ballot measure does indeed have the potential to affect election outcomes, including measures dealing with contentious social issues affecting individual rights. We also find, however, that exposing individuals to basic campaign information — in our case, endorsements from prominent interest groups — greatly attenuates the framing effects of ballot text. Our results suggest that the extent to which ballot text matters depends on the vibrancy of the campaign environment and other information available to voters.
Abstract:
Over the past three decades, a number of U.S. cities have shifted from at-large to district-based elections. Some observers argue that this institutional change encourages elected officials to focus on district priorities while ignoring — and perhaps even sacrificing — broader municipal needs. Must district elections bring parochialism and logrolling to city councils? Using seven years’ worth of roll call data from the Los Angeles City Council, we examine the hypothesis that district elections result in vote-trading among its members. Overall, voting behavior on the council appears inconsistent with conventional logrolling accounts and instead points to a strategy of conditional deference on the part of elected officials. The results suggest that district-based elections do not always push elected officials to ignore the general interests of their city.
Abstract:
Building on evidence that Latino voters participate at higher rates when co-ethnic candidates appear on the ballot, we report the results from a field experiment examining whether co-ethnic policy leadership can produce similar mobilization in direct democracy elections. The study features a direct-mail campaign conducted during California’s 2010 statewide primary election aimed at mobilizing Latino voters. The experiment included variation in the language of the message sent to voters and the extent to which it emphasized the pivotal role played by a prominent Latino official in placing the policy on the ballot. We find that mobilization messages are most effective when they target voters using their preferred language, at least for English-dominant Latinos. By contrast, our experiment yielded no evidence that co-ethnic policy leadership increased voter turnout, although we do show that female voters participate at higher rates when the mobilization campaign prominently features a high-profile female official. These divergent effects provide lessons for the study of ethnic political participation and for the design of effective mobilization campaigns aimed at boosting Latino turnout.
Abstract:
Empirical evidence suggests that voters in states with direct democracy feel better prepared to cast competent votes and that they do so at a greater rate than voters elsewhere. What causal mechanism explains why the presence of direct democracy leads to better civic citizenship and differences in political behavior? We use a survey experiment in which we randomly vary the text used to describe the policy proposals to consider one possible pathway that explains higher levels of political competence among voters in initiative states. In contrast to the focus on campaign mobilization in the existing literature, we rely on insights from consumer decision theory to derive testable hypotheses about voter behavior. We find evidence that voters in initiative states approach political campaigns in a fundamentally different way than voters in noninitiative states. In particular, we show that individuals in initiative states are less susceptible to framing effects — in our experiment, strategic efforts to craft a ballot measure’s title and summary.
Abstract:
For the first time in California history, a carefully vetted commission of citizens has overseen the delicate task of redrawing the state’s political boundaries. By analyzing the maps produced by the commission and comparing these plans to the redistricting overseen by the legislature a decade earlier, we show that the new process has produced important improvements in terms of both the criteria voters said they cared about and the representational implications of interest to academics and political observers. In many respects, however, the magnitude of these gains has fallen short of what many political reformers may have hoped for. Perhaps the most important lesson from the 2011 round of redistricting is that a fair process, no matter how nonpartisan and participatory, cannot avoid the reality that any redistricting scheme produces both political winners and losers.
Abstract:
In this essay, I draw on a new dataset covering every state constitutional convention and revision commission held since 1965 to chart the decline of comprehensive constitutional reform in the American states. I show that, long before amendments became the primary force for state constitutional evolution and innovation, piecemeal changes came to trump comprehensive reforms. Building on recent political science research on mass political behavior and direct democracy, I develop two contrasting theories of constitutional change — the “logroll” and the “poison pill” models of reform — and argue that the second best explains the experience of the American states over the past five decades. I conclude by considering the irony of state constitutional reform — the reality that comprehensive reform efforts are most likely to succeed precisely when they most resemble the incremental approach pursued by standalone constitutional amendments.
Abstract:
Though they cover one-tenth of all adult Californians, the state’s two largest pension funds face a bleak future, with a combined deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars. In this paper, we examine the politics and policies behind the state’s pension train wreck, identifying two primary causes of the crisis. First, re-election minded officials have systematically underfunded the state’s public pensions in an effort to balance the budget. Second, to make up for this underfunding, pension administrators have taken on increasing risk, investing a majority of the systems’ assets in corporate stocks. This voter-sanctioned policy shift has exposed the pension funds, and their government sponsors, to increasing stock market volatility, resulting in growing pension payments at precisely the moment that state and local governments can least afford to make them.
Abstract:
Fiscally strapped local governments have increasingly turned to public-private partnerships (P3s) for redevelopment assistance, empowering private actors to exercise functions typically performed by the public sector. While P3s can enhance project funding and completion, they create the possibility of agency loss, that is, public means — tax dollars, public powers, and other resources — being diverted toward private purposes. Using a principal-agent approach, the authors examine an ambitious and widely heralded P3 in San Diego to build a downtown ballpark and encourage private investment in surrounding neighborhoods. The authors identify a set of political, institutional, and partnership conditions exacerbating agency loss and thwarting redevelopment’s public mission.
Abstract:
Over the past 45 years, 15 American states have held constitutional conventions to confront the pressing concerns of the day. These conventions pursued markedly different paths toward constitutional reform, and achieved widely varying degrees of success. The experience of these states provides important insights for policymakers and citizens that can help identify both models worthy of emulation and the potential pitfalls of reform. The likely success of state constitutional conventions appears tied not to the identity of delegates or the selection mechanism used to recruit them but rather to the scope of the possible revisions and the way in which amendments are presented to voters for final approval. In addition, recent political history suggests that voters remain reluctant to empanel conventions to pursue wholesale reform, rejecting every call for a constitutional convention that has appeared on a state ballot since 1990.
Abstract:
In the face of voter-imposed tax limitations, local governments have adopted ever-more complex financial mechanisms to balance their budgets. Increasingly, municipalities in California have made use of special assessments to finance local infrastructure improvements and other vital government services. These assessments bill property owners for public goods and services in proportion to the “special benefits” that they receive. Because benefit assessments are constitutionally distinct from taxes, the growth in assessment financing has come partly as a direct response to increased constraints on the ability of local governments to raise general taxes. Our contention is that this growth should prove cause for concern due to the unusual combination of social choice pathologies to which special assessments fall vulnerable. Field interviews with public officials and the consultants they call on to help create these assessments suggest that special assessments can indeed pose special democratic problems.
Book Chapters
Working Papers
Abstract:
We combine administrative records from the federal health insurance exchange with aggregate- and individual-level voting data to examine how health care reform affected the 2016 election. Overall, we find that personal experiences with the Affordable Care Act influenced voting decisions and conceivably altered the presidential election outcome in pivotal states, suggesting that Republican efforts to undermine the law’s implementation paid tangible political dividends. We also show that voters purchasing coverage through the exchange responded to premium price hikes publicized shortly before the election — despite most receiving a tax credit that largely shielded them from the increases. We hypothesize that the exchange website’s design and information in renewal letters sent by insurers reduced the salience of federal subsidies and made consumers needlessly sensitive to the “sticker prices” of health insurance. Survey responses collected before the premiums became public provide additional evidence that the premium effects are indeed causal.
Abstract:
Student surveys are widely used to evaluate university teaching and increasingly adopted at the K-12 level, although there remains considerable debate about what they measure. Much disagreement focuses on the well-documented correlation between student grades and their evaluations of instructors. Using individual-level data from 19,000 evaluations of 700 course sections at a flagship public university, we leverage both within-course and within-student variation to rule out popular explanations for this correlation. Specifically, we show that the relationship cannot be explained by instructional quality, workload, grading stringency, or student sorting into courses. Instead, student grade satisfaction — regardless of the underlying cause of the grades — appears to be an important driver of course evaluations. We also present results from a randomized intervention with potential to reduce the magnitude of the association by reminding students to focus on relevant teaching and learning considerations and by increasing the salience of the stakes attached to evaluations for instructor careers. However, these prove ineffective in muting the relationship between grades and student scores.
Abstract:
How do adult “culture wars” in education affect student learning in the classroom? I explore this question by combining information on nearly 500 school district political controversies with data on state test scores. Leveraging variation in the location and timing of these events as the basis for a difference-in-differences design, I show that student achievement declines in the wake of adult political battles. The effects are concentrated in math achievement — the equivalent of approximately 10 days of lost learning — and persist for at least four years. The declines are particularly pronounced for controversies surrounding racial issues and the teaching of evolution. These results suggest that well-intentioned education advocacy efforts focused on salient social justice issues may backfire, producing in unintended negative impacts on student achievement, and raise new questions about the adequacy of local democratic processes for the governance of public schools.