We study whether competitive legislative districts cause higher voter turnout. To do so, we employ rich data on the 2006 to 2020 elections in North Carolina. We make use of variation in district competitiveness due to repeated bouts of redistricting, a process in which district boundaries are redrawn. Specifically, we compare people who share the same districts in each legislative chamber (U.S. House, NC Senate, NC House) before redistricting but who differ in districts after redistricting. We match these people on demographics, party registration, and pre-redistricting turnout. We then track their turnout behavior in post-redistricting elections. For the U.S. House, switching from an uncompetitive “80-20” district to a competitive “55-45” district increases turnout by a rate of 1 percentage point per election of exposure. For the state chambers, the magnitude is 0.6. Effects are highly persistent and sum across chambers. They appear to be explained in part by a learning channel, where living in a competitive district induces people to believe that races can be competitive.

Working papers

District partisan slant shifts voters’ party affiliation: evidence from repeated redistricting in North Carolina

With Carlos Estrada and Emanuel Garcia Munoz. Slides

Does the slant of a legislative district merely reflect the district’s voters, or can it also affect them? To investigate this, we collect rich data on districts and voters from the 2006-2022 elections in North Carolina. We exploit variation in slant due to redistricting, the process in which district boundaries are redrawn. We show that living in a district where one party is powerful causes people to shift their party affiliation toward that party. Effects increase with the number of elections of exposure and sum across legislative chambers. They also seem to stem from changes in preferences, not strategic behavior. An implication of the results is that uncompetitive districts contribute to polarization: under uncompetitive districts, people and places who lean Democratic get put into Democratic-controlled districts and become more Democratic; vice versa for those who lean Republican. As an illustration, we assess the impacts of the districts that were used in North Carolina during the 2010s. Relative to a counterfactual of competitive districts, the 2010s districts led to a sizable increase in geographic polarization—though only a slight increase in polarization at the individual level.

The effects of STEM versus humanities in high school: evidence from admissions cutoffs, administrative data, and large-scale surveys

With Rajeev Dehejia, Andrei Munteanu, Cristian Pop-Eleches, and Miguel Urquiola. Slides

We estimate the impacts of being assigned to a STEM- versus humanities-focused high school curriculum. We use a regression discontinuity design based on cutoffs in Romania’s high school assignment system, together with administrative data (to measure high school enrollment and performance) and large-scale surveys (to measure college enrollment, career plans, high school and college satisfaction, wellbeing, time use, and beliefs and preferences). STEM assignment makes students 67 pp more likely to graduate from high school STEM, 24 pp more likely to enroll in a college STEM program, and 23 pp more likely to plan to pursue a STEM career. Further, it leads students to have greater confidence in their STEM abilities and to enjoy STEM more. During high school, it makes students spend more time on homework and less on social media and reading, have more male and fewer female friends, and report higher wellbeing. Importantly, the STEM curriculum is risky: STEM assignment causes students to score worse on a high-stakes high school exit exam, leading to a lower probability of attending any college and a decline in high school satisfaction by the first year after high school. The risk is especially pronounced for students with low baseline achievement, for whom the reduction in college enrollment is 16 pp. Also, STEM assignment makes females report lower college satisfaction, primarily due to negative experiences with professors and peers—though it does not influence regret over high school or college application choices. Finally, among males, STEM assignment leads to more traditionalist expectations and greater political conservatism.