Research
Working Papers
Protecting Empty Land: The Rise of Zoning in America (job market paper)
Abstract: During the 1920s hundreds of municipal governments in the United States adopted comprehensive zoning laws for the first time. Existing explanations for zoning's meteoric rise claim deteriorating urban conditions raised the value of zoning protections in the eyes of residents and property owners. In contrast, I argue that the 1920s real estate boom created a large class of landowners on the urban fringe whose economic interests better aligned with zoning than incumbent landowners in the urban core. The shift towards low-density, automobile-oriented development in the 1920s shrank the proportion of properties that would lose value because of binding zoning restrictions and made the policy economically beneficial to a decisive share of property owners in many cities. I assemble a new dataset of interwar zoning adoptions and find that markers of fringe real estate activity are positively and significantly associated with zoning adoption between 1920 and 1936. To address endogeneity concerns I use the local supply of developable land to instrument for fringe real estate activity on the basis that municipalities with fewer topographic constraints could add fringe development more easily. Instrumental variable (IV) estimates remain statistically significant and are larger in magnitude than ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. In assessing other proposed causes for zoning's appearance, I find that Southern Black migration and Progressive Party vote share are positively associated with zoning adoption, but I find negative or statistically insignificant correlations between zoning adoption and measures of industrial nuisances.
Hell with the Lid Off: Locational Sorting in America's Most Polluted City with Spencer Banzhaf and Randall Walsh
Abstract: This paper investigates the role of air pollution in the establishment and maintenance of racial inequities in US cities prior to World War II using newly digitized data on air pollution in Pittsburgh from sootfall studies conducted by the Mellon Institute and other organizations. Race and nativity were stronger predictors of pollution exposure than income, and racial inequity in exposure increased substantially between 1910 and 1940, with black Pittsburghers exposed to more than half a standard deviation more pollution than their white counterparts by 1940. Air pollution was also salient in Pittsburgh's housing market, with a 5% drop in housing price associated with a standard deviation increase in air pollution. The findings suggest that air pollution contributed to the establishment and maintenance of racial disparities in US cities prior to World War II.
Women's Suffrage and Local Officials: Evidence from Ohio
Abstract: This paper explores how women's suffrage influenced women's office holding in local government. I digitize rosters of officials for Ohio local governments, identify female officials based on first names, and match officials to decennial censuses. I find that female office-holding increased after suffrage, but women were largely limited to positions dealing with clerical work and education. Female office holders tended to be young, unmarried women with higher levels of education than their male counterparts. I also check whether county-level variation in women's political power contributed to the number of women holding office with a difference-in-differences identification strategy. Using six separate proxies of local variation in women's political power, I find that none of them consistently raise female representation in local government. Finally, I find that female representation in local government correlates with higher taxation and total spending but not spending on public health or charity.
Well Excuse Me! Replicating and Connecting Excuse-Seeking Behavior with Beatriz Ahumada, Yufei Chen, Neeraja Gupta, Kelly Hyde, Marissa Lepper, Neil Silveus, Lise Vesterlund, Taylor Weidman, Alistair Wilson, K. Pun Winichakul, and Liyang Zhou
Abstract: Excuse-seeking behavior that facilitates replacing altruistic choices with self-interested ones has been documented in several domains. In a laboratory study, we replicate three leading papers on this topic: Dana et al.(2007), and the use of information avoidance; Exley (2015), and the use of differential risk preferences; and Di Tella et al. (2015), and the use of motivated beliefs. The replications were conducted as part of a graduate course, attempting to embed one answer to the growing call for experimental replications within the pedagogic process. We fully replicate the simpler Dana et al. paper, and broadly replicate the core findings for the other two projects, though with reduced effect sizes and a failure to replicate on some secondary measures. Finally, we attempt to connect behaviors to facilitate the understanding of how each fit within the broader literature. However, we find no connections across domains.
Works in Progress
100 Years of Environmental Justice in Pittsburgh with Spencer Banzhaf and Randall Walsh