Research Papers

We estimated the impact of entrenched political dynasties on local development in Punjab, Pakistan, using a new 100-year database of political genealogies and a regression discontinuity design.

We aimed to resolve the uncertain relationship between dynastic politics and development in poor countries by providing systematic empirical evidence.

Our findings show that long-standing political families harm development outcomes and persist due to segmented political markets, raising concerns for democratic accountability under clientelism.

We analyzed textbooks from public, religious private, and home schools using computational and AI tools to measure how people, topics, and values are presented across school types.

With growing public funding for religious schools, we sought to understand what these schools teach and how curricula differ across educational settings.

Our findings reveal important differences—such as gender and racial representation—alongside shared omissions, offering insight into how education shapes values and collective memory.

We conducted a multidisciplinary analysis of Guilluy’s concept of “peripheral France” and applied polarization indices to income data at the postal code level across France’s 36,000 municipalities.

We aimed to empirically capture the territorial dimension of inequality and social unrest, particularly as it relates to the emergence of the yellow jackets movement.

Our findings highlight how income polarization aligns with the geography of poverty, offering a deeper understanding of the socio-economic roots of discontent in peripheral France.

We developed a Structural Mixed Autoregression (SMAR) model to analyze how macroeconomic aggregates and income distribution interact dynamically. By incorporating functional variables, we measured the effects of monetary policy and income distribution shocks on macroeconomic outcomes. Our model identifies how shifts in income distribution impact aggregate output and how macroeconomic shocks influence inequality.

Existing studies often treat income distribution and macroeconomic aggregates separately. We sought to understand their joint dynamics to uncover whether redistributive policies could enhance growth while reducing inequality. Our approach addresses gaps in traditional models by capturing the full distributional effects rather than focusing solely on mean or median outcomes.

Redistributive policies can boost growth without harming income equality, challenging the growth-equity trade-off. Monetary policy shocks have mixed effects: contractionary policies may reduce inequality but often worsen it by lowering aggregate income. These findings guide policies balancing macroeconomic stability and income equality.

We analyzed how race was socially constructed during the U.S. Reconstruction Era (1865–1877) by linking detailed skin tone data from the Freedman’s Bank with racial classifications in the 1870 Census. We found that individuals with the same skin tone were racialized differently depending on their socioeconomic status (wealth, literacy, occupation), highlighting how race was shaped by social and economic factors.

We aimed to investigate how racial categories, often treated as fixed, were fluid and influenced by socioeconomic conditions during a pivotal time in U.S. history. By understanding how race was constructed in the aftermath of slavery, we sought to reveal the processes that laid the groundwork for segregation and enduring racial disparities.

Our findings show that wealthier and more literate individuals with the same skin tone were more likely to be classified as White or Mulatto. This underscores how race, as a social construct, has historically been intertwined with class. Recognizing this helps explain persistent racial inequalities and challenges assumptions in research that treats race as a static variable.

We evaluated the impact of implementing Restorative Practices (RP) in Chicago Public Schools. Using a difference-in-differences design, we analyzed how RP affected student behavior, arrests, suspensions, attendance, school climate, and academic performance. The study focused on 73 high schools and assessed how these interventions influenced both in-school and out-of-school student outcomes.

Traditional punitive discipline methods, like suspensions, can harm long-term student outcomes. We aimed to assess whether restorative approaches could improve student behavior, reduce disciplinary incidents, and enhance school climate without sacrificing academic achievement. Understanding these effects is crucial for shaping equitable school discipline policies.

RP led to an 18% reduction in out-of-school suspensions and a 19% decline in juvenile arrests, particularly benefiting Black students. Student perceptions of school climate improved, with no significant harm to academic performance. These findings suggest RP can promote safer, more supportive learning environments while reducing reliance on exclusionary discipline.

We analyzed how political competition influences state capture when business leaders fund campaigns for economic rents. Based on three African countries, we modeled (1) a unified business sector lobbying for a fixed rent and (2) multiple firms competing for rents. Capture rises with more candidates before declining, but when firms share rents, outcomes depend on politicians’ credibility and business rivalry.

We aimed to understand the unintended consequences of political liberalization, particularly how increased political competition may facilitate or mitigate business-driven state capture. Given that standard democratic theories often assume liberalization reduces corruption, our study investigates conditions under which political reforms might actually increase elite influence over policymaking.

Political liberalization does not automatically reduce state capture; its effects depend on economic structures and political incentives. Delaying liberalization until economic transformation is underway may better limit capture. This challenges conventional governance assumptions and provides insights for policymakers managing transitions in developing economies.

We analyzed a generalized mobility model using administrative data from Denmark to examine the roles of family selection and locational characteristics in generating spatial heterogeneity in intergenerational mobility across nearly 300 larger and 2,000 smaller neighborhoods.

We aimed to understand why intergenerational mobility varies across neighborhoods, an essential issue for shaping economic and social policies.

Understanding the mechanisms behind spatial differences in mobility helps policymakers target interventions to improve equality of opportunity across different neighborhoods.

The article reviews two significant 2022 works on economic growth, How the World Became Rich by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin, and Slouching Towards Utopia by J. Bradford DeLong, analyzing their approaches to understanding modern economic development.

We aimed to assess how these books contribute to the understanding of economic growth by integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence with historical reasoning, offering a deeper insight into growth mechanisms.

Understanding economic growth through these complementary works helps clarify the historical contingencies that shaped modern growth, offering valuable perspectives beyond formal models.

We find COVID rises in states with higher re-employment rates due to UI cuts: case, hospitalization, and death rates more than double. Additional wages of $1.1B offset only one-eighth of UI losses, while UI savings are offset by $14.8B in hospitalization costs. Illness-related work time losses are valued at $1.5B. Beyond monetary and morbidity costs, UI cuts are estimated to cause an additional 27,000 deaths.

No previous research has addressed the possibility that, during a pandemic, unemployment insurance (UI) may have externalities for health.

The results suggest an important role for UI during infectious stages of pandemics that should be considered for future policy design.