Institutions of inclusion and exclusion : evidence from gun laws, voting rights, and welfare policy
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I examine how state-level policy interventions shape access to core institutions of American life: public safety, political participation, and social welfare. Across three essays, I analyze the behavioral and social consequences of institutional change using modern causal inference methods applied to administrative and survey data. The first chapter investigates permit-to-purchase (PTP) firearm licensing laws, which require individuals to obtain a license before purchasing a gun. Using synthetic control methods, I estimate the effects of PTP adoptions and repeals in Connecticut, Maryland, and Missouri on gun acquisition and criminal misuse. Maryland's adoption of PTP generated large and immediate effects, reducing self-sourced crime guns by 9.4 percentage points and lengthening time-to-crime by 3.3 years, though no shortrun mortality effects were detected. In contrast, Missouri's repeal led to a 12.9% rise in background checks, a 22 percentage point increase in self-sourced crime guns, and a 37.9% increase in firearm homicides, while Connecticut's earlier adoption showed similar patterns to Maryland. Across all three states, effects emerge rapidly in urban areas but more gradually in rural regions. The second chapter studies the introduction of drug testing requirements for applicants to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Leveraging a stacked difference-in-differences design with annual state-level data, I find that the adoption of drug testing policies reduced TANF caseloads per capita by roughly 30%, driven by declines in both adult and child recipients. Spillover effects to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) suggest an additional 10% decline in caseloads. The third chapter evaluates the effects of Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which removed federal preclearance requirements for election law changes. Using Cooperative Election Study data (2008-2022) and a triple-difference framework, I find no widening of the Black-White turnout gap but suggestive evidence, depending on specification, of an increase in the Hispanic-White gap in states identified as potential ‘bad actors' under the proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Campaign contact rates do not increase in previously covered or ‘bad actor' states, suggesting a lack of countermobilization efforts that might otherwise offset any effects.
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Ph. D.