Do Unions Shape Political Ideologies at Work? (with Aiko Schmeißer) [WP]
R & R American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Runner-Up for the Wicksell Prize of the European Public Choice Society
Labor unions influence economic outcomes not only through bargaining with employers over work contracts but also via political activities that can profoundly shape political systems. In unionized workplaces, they may mobilize and change the ideological positions of both unionizing workers and their non-unionizing management. In this paper, we analyze the workplace-level impact of unionization on workers' and managers' political campaign contributions. We link establishment-level union election data with transaction-level campaign contributions to federal and local candidates in the United States. Using a difference-in-differences design, validated through regression discontinuity tests and a novel instrumental variable approach, we find that unionization leads to a leftward shift of campaign contributions. Unionization increases support for Democrats relative to Republicans not only among workers but especially among managers, suggesting that managers converge toward workers' political preferences. The effects are stronger in settings with more cooperative union-employer interactions, such as when union elections are not contested by an unfair labor practice charge and result in a collective bargaining agreement.
Coverd in The Hammer by Hamilton Nolan
From Moderates to Extremes: How Immigration Polarizes American Politics (with Axel Dreher, Sarah Langlotz and Christopher Parsons) [WP]
We provide causal evidence that immigration has contributed to the polarization of American politics. Using an ancestry-based shift-share instrument, we study immigration flows into U.S. counties between 1992 and 2016. Counties exposed to larger immigrant inflows become more polarized both in campaign contributions and in political representation: donors increasingly support ideologically extreme candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and the candidates who win office are themselves further from the ideological center. These effects are most pronounced in primary elections, where moderate Democrats are more likely to lose and conservative Republicans more likely to win in counties with higher immigration inflows. The rightward shift is strongest in occupations with high immigrant shares but limited interpersonal contact, suggesting that exposure without interaction amplifies perceived threat. We complement these results with original survey evidence that sheds light on the underlying mechanisms. Liberals and conservatives differ less in their economic assessments of immigration than in their cultural interpretations: liberals stress diversity and opportunity, whereas conservatives emphasize risk and social cohesion. Together, these findings indicate that immigration reshapes American politics through the joint forces of salience and contact---heightening polarization where immigrants are visible but unfamiliar, and attenuating it where interaction is routine.
A substantially different version of this project previously circulated as a working paper titled "Immigration, Political Ideologies and the Polarization of American Politics''.
Political Ideologies, Redistribution and Local (Mis-)Perceptions of Migrant Stocks and Flows (with Axel Dreher, Sarah Langlotz and Christopher Parsons) [WP]
Do factual immigration updates shift societal concerns across political ideologies? Conducting an online experiment in the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, respondents provided local immigrant stock and flow estimates before being randomized to receive realistic information on stocks or flows, framed as constant or rising. Most respondents overestimate stocks and flows, with asymmetries emerging across ideologies. Information treatments lower redistribution and tax concerns by 5.4 percentage points on average. Immigration attitudes remain unchanged. Liberals overestimate stocks most, responding to stock treatments. Conservatives overstate flows more, responding to flow information. This pattern is consistent with motivated reasoning: identity-linked immigration views are resistant to correction, while redistribution concerns are elastic to facts when information targets the migration dimension most salient to each ideology.
Chinese Aid and Health at the Country and Local Level (with John Cruzatti and Axel Dreher) [Paper]
World Development (2023) Vol. 167, 106214
We investigate whether and to what extent Chinese development finance affects infant mortality, combining 92 demographic and health surveys (DHS) for a maximum of 53 countries and almost 55,000 sub-national locations over the 2002-2014 period. We address causality by instrumenting aid with a set of interacted variables. Variation over time results from indicators that measure the availability of funding in a given year. Cross-sectional variation results from a sub-national region’s “probability to receive aid.” Controlled for this probability in tandem with fixed effects for country-years and provinces, the interactions of these variables form powerful and excludable instruments. Our results show that Chinese aid increases infant mortality at sub-national scales, but decreases mortality at the country-level. In several tests, we show that this stark contrast likely results from aid being fungible within recipient countries.
Politicians’ migration narratives in the media and politics (with Tobias Großbölting)
Can refugees revitalize rural America? (with Axel Dreher, Sarah Langlotz, Christopher Parsons and Giovanni Peri)
Rural Internet, Identities and Governance
Rural Internet and Cooperation (with Nadine Woolley)