Essays in Applied Microeconomics
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Date
2022-10-04
Authors
Raze, Kyle
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
In this dissertation, I consider two potential sources of racial disparities: racially biased discipline at school and changes to voting rights protections. In the first chapter, I examine patterns of racial disparities in school discipline. Racial gaps in the adjudication of student misconduct are well documented—for similar behaviors, students of color are more likely to be disciplined and discipline tends to be harsher. While students of color do receive harsher punishments, on average, I show that this differential depends on the racial composition of incidents. Consistent with administrators moving toward equal treatment when variation in race is more salient, multi-race incidents evidence no differentials. In fact, when a white student is implicated in the same incident as a student of color, punishments imposed on students of color are indistinguishable from those imposed on white students in all-white incidents. In the second chapter, I turn to the effects of changes to voting rights protections on racial disparities in voter turnout. Existing research shows that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 increased turnout among Black voters, which then generated economic benefits for Black communities. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court invalidated the enforcement mechanism responsible for these improvements, prompting concerns that states with histories of discriminatory election practices would respond by suppressing Black turnout. I estimate the effect of the Shelby decision on the racial composition of the electorate using triple-difference comparisons of validated turnout data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. The data suggest that the Shelby decision did not widen the Black-white turnout gap in states subject to the ruling.
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Keywords
racial discrimination, school discipline, Shelby County v. Holder, student behavior, voter suppression, voting rights