Research
Judicial Elections and the Merit Plan: Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard Issues in State Appellate Courts (Job Market Paper)
I examine the effect of the merit plan for selecting and retaining judges on judicial decision-making. In the merit plan, a nominating commission nominates three candidates, one of whom is chosen by the Governor to serve as a judge; judges are retained through unopposed retention elections. Using panel data on state appellate courts from 1952 to 1995, I identify and examine moral hazard and adverse selection effects associated with transitions between selection and retention methods. I contribute to the literature by investigating the relationship between judicial selection and retention methods and judicial decisions, as well as by introducing methodology that allows me to simultaneously estimate separate moral hazard and adverse selection effects. I find that judges appointed through the merit plan are 4% more likely to support civil suit plaintiffs, while the institution of retention elections has no statistically significant effect on civil suit decisions. In criminal cases, by contrast, I find mixed evidence of an effect of merit selection on support for criminal prosecutors, but do find suggestive evidence that judges appointed before the merit plan are 10% less likely to support criminal prosecutors after retention elections are introduced. All four of these findings conform to theoretical predictions based on the incentives faced by judges.
Do Parties Choose Voters for Party Politicians? Redistricting and the Partisan Balance in Congress (with Ethan Kaplan and Danny Kolliner)
We estimate the impact of the ability of a political party to redistrict legislative seats upon partisan seat share allocations. Controlling for state X decade fixed effects and year effects, we find that parties do not increase their seat share in the 1970s and 1980s when they are able to pass redistricting bills without the opposition. However, we do find that in the 1990s-2010s, Republican seat shares in the House of Representatives rise by 10\% on average in the three subsequent elections after having legal control over redistricting. We find no similar effect of Democratic party control over redistricting upon seat share allocations in the House of Representatives. We also find no impact of either party on upper or lower state house seat share allocations. We conclude that parties sometimes do use control over redistricting to win future elections but they have not and do not always do so.
Work in Progress
"Political Preference Formation: Party Registration Effects of Random College Roommate Assignments" (with Ethan Kaplan)
"Too Far Behind to Catch Up: Child Support Enforcement and Arrears among Incarcerated Individuals."