publications

2023

1. Ideology and Performance in Public Organizations Spenkuch, J., E. Teso, and G. Xu Econometrica, 91(4): 1171–1203. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   We combine personnel records of the United States federal bureaucracy from 1997-2019 with administrative voter registration data to study how ideological alignment between politicians and bureaucrats affects turnover and performance. We document significant partisan cycles and turnover among political appointees. By contrast, we find no political cycles in the civil service. At any point in time a sizable share of bureaucrats is ideologically misaligned with their political leaders. We study the performance implications of this misalignment for the case of procurement officers. Exploiting presidential transitions as a source of “within-bureaucrat” variation in political alignment, we find that procurement contracts overseen by misaligned officers exhibit greater cost overruns and delays. We provide evidence consistent with a general “morale effect,” whereby misaligned bureaucrats are less motivated to pursue the organizational mission. Our results thus help to shed some of the first light on the costs of ideological misalignment within public organizations.

2022

1. Politics from the Bench? Ideology and Strategic Voting in the U.S. Supreme Court Clark, T., P. Montagnes, and J. Spenkuch Journal of Public Economics, 214: 104726. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   In the United States, Supreme Court justices often vote along ideological lines. Why this is the case remains incompletely understood. To learn more about justices’ preferences and the nature of decision-making in the Court, we differentiate between votes that were pivotal and those that were not. We find that in situations in which a justice is pivotal, her ideology is even more predictive of her vote than usual, especially when her choice matters for unambiguously establishing legal precedent. To interpret this previously unknown pattern in the data, we develop a model of voting in which justices have both expressive and instrumental preferences. That is, the justices strategically trade off which litigant should prevail based on the merits of a case with their desire to shape precedent.

2. Partisan Spatial Sorting in the United States: A Theoretical and Empirical Overview Kaplan, E., J. Spenkuch, and R. Sullivan Journal of Public Economics, 211: 104668. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   We develop a variance-like index of heterogeneity in partisanship and use it to measure spatial sorting. We prove that our index is the only one (up to a linear transformation) that satisfies seven theoretical properties, all of which are intuitively desirable. Based on this index we document the long-run evolution of geographic sorting along partisan lines in the American electorate. We provide evidence that spatial cleavages have increased dramatically since the mid-twentieth century. At no point since the Civil War have partisans been as clustered within the boundaries of individual states as today. Nonetheless, even when geographic sorting is measured at the precinct level, differences across communities tend to be significantly smaller than differences within. In this sense, the American electorate continues to be more diverse within than across areas.

2020

1. Quid Pro Quo? Corporate Returns to Campaign Contributions Fowler, A., H. Garro, and J. Spenkuch Journal of Politics, 82(3): 844–858. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   Scholars, pundits, and political reformers have long worried that corporations distort public policy and subvert the will of the electorate by donating to politicians. Well-publicized anecdotes notwithstanding, whether and how much corporations actually benefit from supporting political candidates remains unknown. To systematically address this question, we utilize two complementary empirical approaches that isolate the monetary benefits a company derives from a favored candidate winning office. First, we use a regression discontinuity design exploiting close congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative elections. Second, we leverage within-campaign changes in market beliefs about the outcomes of U.S. Senate races. We find no evidence that corporations benefit from electing candidates supported by their PACs, and we can statistically reject effect sizes greater than 0.3 percent of firm value. Our results suggest that corporate campaign contributions do not buy significant political favors—at least not on average.

2018

1. Political Advertising and Election Results Spenkuch, J., and D. Toniatti Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133(4): 1981–2036. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   We study the persuasive effects of political advertising. Our empirical strategy exploits FCC regulations that result in plausibly exogenous variation in the number of impressions across the borders of neighboring counties. Applying this approach to detailed data on television advertisement broadcasts and viewership patterns during the 2004–12 presidential campaigns, our results indicate that total political advertising has almost no impact on aggregate turnout. By contrast, we find a positive and economically meaningful effect of advertising on candidates’ vote shares. Taken at face value, our estimates imply that a standard deviation increase in the partisan difference in advertising raises the partisan difference in vote shares by about 0.5 percentage points. Evidence from a regression discontinuity design suggests that advertising affects election results by altering the partisan composition of the electorate.

2. A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility Becker, G., S. Kominers, K. Murphy, and J. Spenkuch Journal of Political Economy, 126(S1): S7–S25. [Abstract] [PDF] [DOI]

   We study the link between market forces, cross-sectional inequality, and intergenerational mobility. Emphasizing complementarities in the production of human capital, we show that wealthy parents invest, on average, more in their offspring than poorer ones. As a result, economic status persists across generations even in a world with perfect capital markets and absent differences in innate ability. In fact, under certain conditions, successive generations of the same family may cease to regress towards the mean. We also consider how short- and long-run mobility are affected by changes in the returns to human capital.

3. Backward Induction in the Wild? Evidence from Sequential Voting in the U.S. Senate Spenkuch, J., P. Montagnes, and D. Magleby American Economic Review, 108(7): 1971–2013. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   In the US Senate, roll calls are held in alphabetical order. We document that senators early in the order are less likely to vote with the majority of their own party than those whose last name places them at the end of the alphabet. To speak to the mechanism behind this result, we develop a simple model of sequential voting, in which forward-looking senators rely on backward induction in order to free ride on their colleagues. Estimating our model structurally, we find that this form of strategic behavior is an important part of equilibrium play. We also consider, but ultimately dismiss, alternative explanations related to learning about common values and vote buying.

4. Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis Spenkuch, J., and P. Tillmann American Journal of Political Science, 62(1): 19–36. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   In Weimar Germany, the Catholic Church vehemently warned ordinary parishioners about the dangers of extremist parties. We establish that constituencies’ religious composition is an important empirical predictor of Nazi vote shares—dwarfing the explanatory power of any other demographic or socioeconomic variable. Even after carefully accounting for observational differences, Catholics were far less likely to vote for the NSDAP than their Protestant counterparts. The evidence suggests that this disparity was, in large part, due to the sway of the Catholic Church and its dignitaries. At the same time, we show that attempts to immunize Catholics against the radical left failed to achieve the desired result. To explain the puzzling asymmetry in the Church’s influence at the ballot box, we develop a simple theoretical framework of elite influence in electoral politics.

5. Expressive vs. Strategic Voters: An Empirical Assessment Spenkuch, J. Journal of Public Economics, 165: 73–81. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   Leading theories of how voters choose between candidates are rooted in two very different paradigms, with starkly different behavioral implications. Exploiting the incentive structure of Germany’s electoral system, I develop a novel set of empirical tests that pit the canonical pivotal voter model against alternative accounts according to which individuals derive expressive utility from supporting their most preferred candidate. The results show that neither paradigm can explain the most salient features of the data. In addition, the evidence suggests that voters cannot be neatly categorized into sincere and strategic “types.”

6. Self-Selection and Comparative Advantage in Social Interactions Cicala, S., R. Fryer, and J. Spenkuch Journal of the European Economic Association, 16(4): 983–1020. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   We propose a theory of social interactions based on self-selection and comparative advantage. In our model, students choose peer groups based on their comparative advantage within a social environment. The effect of moving a student into a different environment with higher-achieving peers depends on where in the ability distribution she falls and the shadow prices that clear the social market. We show that the model’s key prediction—an individual’s ordinal rank predicts her behavior and test scores—is borne out in one randomized controlled trial in Kenya as well as administrative data from the U.S. To test whether our selection mechanism can explain the effect of rank on outcomes, we conduct an experiment with nearly 600 public school students in Houston. The experimental results suggest that social interactions are mediated by self-selection based on comparative advantage.

2017

1. Religion and Work: Micro Evidence from Contemporary Germany Spenkuch, J. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 135: 193–214. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   Using micro data from contemporary Germany, this paper studies the connection between Protestantism and modern-day labor market outcomes. To address the endogeneity in self-declared religion, I exploit a provision in a sixteenth-century peace treaty, which determined the geographic distribution of Catholics and Protestants. Reduced form and instrumental variable estimates provide no evidence of an effect of Protestantism on hourly wages. However, relative to their Catholic counterparts, Protestants do appear to work longer hours. The patterns in the data are difficult to reconcile with explanations based on institutional factors or religious differences in human capital acquisition. Religious differences in individuals’ values, however, can account for most of the estimated effects.

2016

1. The Manipulation of Children’s Preferences, Old Age Support, and Investment in Children’s Human Capital Becker, G., K. Murphy, and J. Spenkuch Journal of Labor Economics, 34(S2): S3–S30. [Abstract] [PDF] [DOI]

   We consider the link between parents’ influence over the preferences of children, parental investments in children’s human capital, and children’s support of elderly parents. It may pay for parents to spend resources to “manipulate” children’s preferences in order to induce them to support their parents in old age. Since parents invest more in children when they expect greater support, manipulation of child preferences may end up helping children and parents. A new result, which we call the “Rotten Parent Theorem,” demonstrates that if children are altruistic, then even selfish parents will make the optimal investment in their children’s human capital.

2. Intergenerational Mobility and Income Inequality Spenkuch, J. in Church, T., C. Miller, and J. Taylor (eds.), Inequality and Economic Policy: Essays in Memory of Gary Becker (pp. 65–89). Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. [PDF]

2015

1. Please Don’t Vote for Me: Voting in a Natural Experiment with Perverse Incentives Spenkuch, J. Economic Journal, 125(585): 1025–1052. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   Whether individuals vote strategically is one of the most important questions at the intersection of economics and political science. Exploiting a flaw in the German electoral system by which a party may gain seats by receiving fewer votes, this article documents patterns of preference misrepresentation in a large, real‐world election. During the 2005 elections to the Bundestag, the sudden death of a right‐wing candidate necessitated a by‐election in one electoral district. Knowing the results in all other districts and given the paradoxical incentives in place, a substantial fraction of the electorate voted for a party other than their most preferred one, or abstained.

2014

1. Understanding the Impact of Immigration on Crime Spenkuch, J. American Law and Economics Review, 16(1): 177–219. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   Almost three quarters of Americans believe that immigration increases crime. Yet, existing academic research has shown no such effect. Using panel data on U.S. counties, this paper presents empirical evidence on a systematic, but small impact of immigration on crime. Consistent with the economic model of crime this effect is stronger for crimes motivated by financial gain, such as motor vehicle theft and robbery. Moreover, the effect is only present for those immigrants most likely to have poor labor market outcomes. Failure to account for the cost of increased crime would overstate the “immigration surplus,” but it would not reverse its sign.

2013

1. Racial Disparities in Job Finding and Offered Wages Fryer, R., D. Pager, and J. Spenkuch Journal of Law and Economics, 56(3): 633–689. [Abstract] [PDF] [DOI]

   The extent to which discrimination can explain racial wage gaps is one of the most divisive issues in the social sciences. Using a newly available data set, this paper develops a simple empirical test that, under plausible (but not innocuous) conditions, provides a lower bound on the extent of discrimination in the labor market. Taken at face value, our estimates imply that differential treatment accounts for at least one-third of the black-white wage gap. We argue that the patterns in our data are most naturally rationalized through a search-matching model in which employers statistically discriminate on the basis of race when hiring unemployed workers but learn about their marginal product over time.

2012

1. Moral Hazard and Selection Among the Poor: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment Spenkuch, J. Journal of Health Economics, 31(1): 72–85. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   Not only does economic theory predict high-risk individuals to be more likely to purchase insurance, but insurance coverage is also thought to crowd out precautionary activities. In spite of stark theoretical predictions, there is conflicting empirical evidence on adverse selection, and evidence on ex ante moral hazard is very scarce. Using data from the Seguro Popular Experiment in Mexico, this paper documents patterns of selection on observables into health insurance as well as the existence of non-negligible ex ante moral hazard. More specifically, the findings indicate that (i) agents in poor self-assessed health prior to the intervention have, all else equal, a higher propensity to take up insurance; and (ii) insurance coverage reduces the demand for self-protection in the form of preventive care. Curiously, however, individuals do not sort based on objective measures of their health.

2. The Plight of Mixed-Race Adolescents Fryer, R., S. Levitt, L. Kahn, and J. Spenkuch Review of Economics and Statistics, 94(3): 621–634. [Abstract] [PDF] [SI] [DOI]

   Since 1970, the fraction of mixed-race black-white births has increased nearly ninefold. This paper describes basic facts about the behaviors and outcomes of black-white mixed-race individuals. Unsurprisingly, on a host of background and achievement characteristics, as well as adult outcomes, mixed-race individuals fall in between whites and blacks. When it comes to engaging in risky and antisocial adolescent behavior, however, mixed-race adolescents are stark outliers compared to both blacks and whites. We argue that these behavioral patterns are most consistent with a two-sector Roy model, in which mixed-race adolescents, not having a predetermined peer group, engage in more risky behaviors in order to be accepted.