When do public policies influence citizens’ political attitudes and behavior, and among whom? We study this question using one of the largest social provision programs in the United States: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). We exploit the staggered roll-out of state-level EITC programs to estimate the causal effect of the program on elections, voter behavior, and attitudes about the government. Contrary to predictions from the policy feedback literature, we show that the credit leads to higher vote shares and approval ratings for the implementing governor. These effects are temporally limited to the first years of the credit’s availability, and dissipate over time. Taken together, our results offer new insights about the conditions under which particularistic economic policies affect political outcomes.

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Contemporary and historical political debates often revolve around principles of federalism, in which governing authority is divided across levels of government. Despite the prominence of these debates, existing scholarship provides relatively limited evidence about the nature and structure of Americans’ preferences for decentralization. We develop a new survey-based measure to characterize attitudes toward subnational power and evaluate it with a national sample of more than 2000 American adults. We find that preferences for devolution vary considerably both across and within states, and reflect individuals’ ideological orientations and evaluations of government performance. Overall, our battery produces a reliable survey instrument for evaluating preferences for federalism and provides new evidence that attitudes toward institutional arrangements are structured less by short-term political interests than by core preferences for the distribution of state authority.

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We study the political economy of redistribution over a broad class of decision rules. We suggest a simple and elegant procedure to select a robust equilibrium from the multiplicity in the core. Equilibrium policy depends on the full income profile, and, importantly, the preferences of two decisive voters. We show that the effect of increasing inequality depends on the decision rule and the shape of the income distribution; redistribution will increase if both decisive voters are “relatively poor,” and decrease if at least one is sufficiently “rich.” Additionally, redistribution decreases as the polity adopts increasingly stringent super-majority rules.

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Far from the purely constituent-oriented or purely party-oriented member of Congress (MC) that existingwork posits, this paper argues that MCs’ social groups and the norms of behavior that define them canpowerfully constrain legislators’ behaviors. Guided by insights from scholarship on legislative organizations and identity politics, I test my argument using the case of Black MCs and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). My main empirical strategy uses an original data set of committee hearing transcriptsfrom 2007 to 2019 and a design that exploits members’ exposure to fellow Black MCs on their variouscommittee assignments to uncover the impact of group pressures on CBC members. I show that the effect of serving on a committee with more co-ethnic legislators varies by a given MC’s type: Members that are more aligned with the interests of the CBC — those that are left-leaning and represent more-Black Congressional districts — participate more in committee hearings, and members that are less aligned participate less. I then show using a series of empirical tests and qualitative evidence drawing on eliteinterviews that this pattern of results is driven by in-group sanctions for behavior that is inconsistentwith caucus wishes. Together, the theory and findings shed light on the role of groups and their normsin shaping elite behavior and provide evidence for the contextual nature of legislative Black politicalbehavior

When does descriptive representation translate into substantive benefits for marginalized groups? While greater representation is often assumed to improve outcomes for racial, ethnic, and gender minorities, this paper argues that effectiveness depends on the ability of minority legislators to coordinate, which is shaped by group size, member similarity, and political power. Using data on American state legislators from 1996 to 2020, I find that higher cohesion within Black, Hispanic, and White female Democratic legislative groups is associated with smaller group size, greater biographical similarity among members, and Democratic control of the chamber. More cohesive groups are also more productive, sponsoring and passing more legislation benefiting their identity group. Two natural experiments highlight the drivers of cohesion. First, term limits increase cohesion by replacing senior members with a more homogeneous membership and by creating political precarity. Second, redistricting reduces cohesion when legislators lose co-racial constituents, reflecting the role of aligned interests in fostering unity. Using an instrumental variables framework, I further show that these localized shocks to group unity are positively associated with legislative productivity. These findings reveal that cohesion is critical for transforming representation into meaningful outcomes. Moreover, while representation matters, the alignment of interests within groups and the broader political context play pivotal roles in determining the effectiveness of minority legislators.

Analyses of the "revolving door" phenomenon often focus on the influence former public employees exert after moving to private-sector roles. This article takes a different approach, exploring how individuals with private-sector experience shape the behaviors and outputs of their new public-sector employers. Since 2001, the share of new Congressional hires with prior experience outside of government has grown significantly, peaking at 45% in 2015 before declining to 30% today. These staffers commonly bring expertise from fields such as public agencies, law, finance, and IT. Motivated by this trend, we analyze how these staffers act as conduits between industry and government, potentially enhancing their offices’ appeal to industry stakeholders. By examining legislative outputs, comments on proposed regulations, campaign contributions, and travel patterns, we show how private-sector experience influences office priorities and effectiveness. This study highlights the evolving role of Congressional staffers in bridging public and private interests.

The events of January 6, 2021 exposed congressional staffers to unprecedented security threats and emotional distress, potentially reshaping their career decisions, work motivations, and productivity. Using an event study design, we compare congressional sessions before the 117th Congress to assess how this shock affected staff retention and hiring patterns. Our findings indicate a significant increase in staff turnover following the events of January 6, along with a decline in the human capital of new hires, as measured by educational attainment and congressional experience. These results provide key insights into how political unrest influences workforce stability in a government institution already characterized by high turnover

Recent national elections have brought attention to the question of increasing the top marginal income tax rate. However, partly because such policy changes seldom occur without the influence of moneyed interests that have an incentive to block such measures, we as scholars lack clear examples showing whether and how the affluent respond to policies that hurt their pocketbooks. To address this, I study the political effects of such a tax change by examining an unexpected 2004 New Jersey policy change that raised the marginal tax rate for incomes above $500,000 by 2.6 percentage points. Consistent with other works studying 'economic voting,' more affluent municipalities appeared to punish state legislators associated with the tax at the ballot box. Wealthy individuals, of course, can also influence politics by granting or withholding potentially important campaign dollars. Hence, in the second half of the paper, I identify the campaign finance effects of the 2004 tax. By imputing donors’ incomes using their addresses and self-reported occupations, I find that individuals that are more likely to have high incomes became less likely to donate to Democratic state legislators. Moreover, those who did donate, donated smaller amounts. In subsequent electoral cycles, these more affluent donors also appeared to support more moderate and right-leaning primary candidates. Taken together, the results suggest that well-off voters responded to the tax and that the enactment of progressive policy agendas has implications for the political behavior of high-earning individuals who have an incentive to prevent such changes.