working papers

2025

1. The Memory Premium Salant, Y., J. Spenkuch, and D. Almog [Abstract] [PDF]

   We explore the role of memory for choice behavior in unfamiliar environments. Using a unique data set, we document that decision makers exhibit a “memory premium.” They tend to choose in-memory alternatives over out-of-memory ones, even when the latter are objectively better. Consistent with well-established regularities regarding the inner workings of human memory, the memory premium is associative, subject to interference and repetition effects, and decays over time. Even as decision makers gain familiarity with the environment, the memory premium remains economically large. Our results imply that the ease with which past experiences come to mind plays an important role in shaping choice behavior.

2. A Different World: Enduring Effects of School Desegregation on Ideology and Attitudes Kaplan, E., J. Spenkuch, and C. Tuttle [Abstract] [PDF]

   In 1975, a federal court ordered the desegregation of public schools in Jefferson County, KY. In order to approximately equalize the share of minorities across schools, students were assigned to a busing schedule that depended on the first letter of their last name. We use the resulting quasi-random variation to estimate the long-run impact of attending an inner-city school on political participation and preferences among whites. Drawing on administrative voter registration records and an original survey, we find that being bused to an inner-city school significantly increases support for the Democratic Party and its candidates more than forty years later. Consistent with the idea that exposure to an inner-city environment causes a permanent change in ideological outlook, we also find evidence that bused individuals are much less likely to believe in a "just world" (i.e., that success is earned rather than attributable to luck) and, more tentatively, that they become more supportive of some forms of redistribution. Taken together, our findings point to a poverty-centered version of the contact hypothesis, whereby witnessing economic deprivation durably sensitizes individuals to issues of inequality and fairness.

3. From the Classroom to the Ballot Box: Turnout and Partisan Consequences of Education Kaplan, E., J. Spenkuch, and C. Tuttle [Abstract] [PDF]

   We estimate the impact of education on voter turnout and partisanship using a regression discontinuity design based on school-entry cutoffs and exact date of birth. Drawing on nationwide administrative voter registration data, we find that individuals who were slotted to enter school one year earlier are more likely to vote and more likely to register as independents. These reduced-form effects may be driven by changes in educational attainment or by differences in the quality of individuals’ educational experiences. We leverage age-related heterogeneity in effect sizes to isolate the role of educational attainment. Our results imply that an additional year of schooling increases turnout by about 3 percentage points.

4. Personnel is Policy: Delegation and Political Misalignment in the Rulemaking Process Bellodi, L., M. Morelli, J. Spenkuch, E. Teso, M. Vannoni, and G. Xu [Abstract] [PDF]

   We combine comprehensive data on the U.S. federal rulemaking process with individual-level personnel and voter registration records to study the consequences of partisan misalignment between regulators and the president. We present three main results. First, even important pieces of new regulation are frequently delegated to bureaucrats who are politically misaligned. Second, rules that are overseen by misaligned regulators take systematically longer to complete, are more verbose, generate more negative feedback from the public, and are more likely to be challenged in court. Third, in assigning regulators to rules, agency leaders often face a sharp tradeoff between political alignment and expertise. Agency frictions notwithstanding, they tend to resolve this tradeoff in favor of expertise.