The impact of a trade embargo on quality

A trade embargo is a common way to punish a country. The question I ask is what effect does an embargo have on an imperfectly competitive market? I extend the standard quality duopoly model to show that if the embargo is on the high quality good the quality diminishes and causes an ambiguous effect on prices. An embargo on the low quality good raises the quality of the better good and increases both firm's price.punishment

Ranked Choice Voting in Mayoral Elections

Numerous cities across the U.S. have recently switched to ranked choice voting in their local mayoral elections. Proponents argue that, by allowing voters to fully express their preferences over the candidates, voter satisfaction and, ultimately, turnout will improve. Opponents are concerned over the number of candidates who enter the race, as it increases the chances of someone only supported by a minority taking office. To date, there has not been an empirical analysis of ranked choice voting’s effects. First, using the Synthetic Control Method on three large U.S. cities who switched relatively recently, I explore the voting rule’s causal impact. I show that the voting rule does not lead to a noticeable change in voter turnout, but does dramatically increase the number of candidates who compete. Second, I explore the public finance consequences comparing budgets of both these three cities to their synthetics and exploiting a panel data set of municipal budgets, which allows me to include additional treated cities. I provide evidence that budget deficits grow after its implementation. Evidence indicates that the increased spending occurs in public welfare programs

Queuing up for justice : elections and case backlogs

We analyze the impact of prosecutor elections on case backlogs. Previous evidence has shown that re-election pressures result in more cases going to trial. Since trials require time and resources, one can expect an effect on the queue. Two competing theories are developed: one of signaling quality in an asymmetric information environment and one of effort exertion, each of which can explain increased trials before election, but differ in their predictions regarding the impact on backlogs. A district-level, panel data set of caseload flows in North Carolina is analyzed. Evidence is presented that contested re-elections are associated with a decrease in the number of cases handled and an acceleration of the growth of the backlog. This suggests that retention concerns lead to signaling which causes distortions, re-allocating resources from disposing cases to prosecuting cases at trial

The Right to Counsel: Criminal Prosecution in 19th Century London

Exploiting a novel data set of criminal trials in 19th century London, we evaluate the impact of an accused’s right to counsel on convictions. While lower-level crimes had an established history of professional representation prior to 1836, individuals accused of committing a felony did not, even though the prosecution was conducted by professional attorneys. The Prisoners’ Counsel At of 1836 remedied this and first introduced the right to counsel in common law systems. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy we identify the causal effect of defense counsel. We find the surprising result that the professionalization of the courtroom lead to an increase in the conviction rate, which we interpret as a consequence of jurors feeling that the trial became fairer. We go further and employ a topic modeling approach to the text of the transcripts to provide suggestive evidence on how the trials changed when defense counsel was fully introduced

Do Elections Encourage Public Actors To Be More Responsive?

In the U.S. many public services are provided by individuals who are selected in local elections. We ask whether elections encourage public actors to be responsive to citizens. We design a novel field experiment where we send an information request to a random sample of prosecutor offices. Whether someone replies to the request is our measurement of responsiveness. We show that offices whose head is up for re-election are more likely to respond. We also show that offices in states that appoint their local prosecutors are substantially less likely to respond than a matched set of offices with elected leadership

Sexual Assault on Campus: The Impact of the Women\u27s Gymnastics Scandal on Michigan State

In 2017 Larry Nassar was sentenced to 60 years for assaulting over 300 women during his career as team doctor for the U.S. women’s national gymnastics team and as an osteopathic doctor and professor at Michigan State University. The university received a stream of negative publicity for their role in the scandal. We identify the impact of the sexual assault scandal on the university. Using a synthetic control method approach, we estimate the differences between the real and “synthetic” Michigan State in several university outcomes. We find significant reductions in the number of applications, changes in gender ratio of incoming students, and a lowering of SAT Math scores

Save to Win: Using Contests to Promote Savings

We ask whether linking savings accounts to contests can promote saving. We do this by offering contest-linked accounts to individuals in rural Uganda where poverty is a serious problem. Our design builds off of results in experimental economics documenting excessive competitiveness in contests, with the goal of harnessing this behavior for the good. We find that, properly designed, we encourage savings beyond both pre-treatment levels and the control group. We explore reasonable heterogeneous treatment effects and document long lasting impacts on wealth

Three Golden Balls: Pawn Shops and Crime

We ask what the relationship is between pawn shops and crime. The dominant narrative is that pawn shops reduce the transaction costs of crime and, consequently, promote it. We explore the alternative where pawn shops address the financial distress of those in need, which reduces the incentive to engage in crime. We exploit two distinct policies affecting access to pawn shops − severe licensing fees implemented in London in the early 1800s and state variation in the classification of pawn shops as essential businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic in spring 2020. For each, employing a difference-in-difference identification strategy, we provide evidence that restrictions to pawn shop access increases property crime

District Attorney Compensation and Performance

Does prosecutor pay impact performance? We attempt to identify the causal effect of wages on a prosecutor’s effort by studying a large (41%), exogenous salary increase for district attorneys in New York state. We measure the performance of prosecutors by the likelihood that a conviction is upheld when appealed. If the efficiency wage theory accurately explains non-market actor behavior, then the exogenous wage shock should entice better performance. Alternatively, if individuals who hold public office are motivated primarily by an intrinsic desire to carry out their office duties to the best of their ability rather than strictly financial compensation, then their performance would be unrelated to changes in their salary. We mostly find, inconsistent with efficiency wage theory, that an exogenous pay increase has a null effect on prosecutor performance