Historical Political Economy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel puts together work on historical political economy. Using historical natural experiments, the four papers causally study the consequences of different political institutions whose reforms are at the center of scholarly and policy debates today, from non-partisan elections and civil service reform to antitrust policies and race-conscious remedial policies. Carreri, Payson and Thompson study progressive era municipal reforms and their impact on the relative wellbeing of immigrants and native-born residents across cities in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. Paulsen also focuses on local governments and leverages a governance reform in early 20th century Sweden to study the electoral impact of party-centered electoral institutions at the local level. Allen, Scheve and Stasavage also focus on the progressive era in the U.S. as well as other case studies to analyze the relationship between strong antitrust policy, democracy, and inequality. Aneja and Grumbach exploit the onset of court-mandated affirmative action plans in U.S. law enforcement agencies to study the electoral effects of affirmative action mandates.

Sub Unit

• Division 6: Political Economy

Chair

• David Stasavage New York University

Discussants

• Mark Dincecco University of Michigan

• Francisco Garfias University of California, San Diego

Individual Presentations

• Municipal Reform and the Socioeconomic Integration of Immigrants - Maria Carreri, University of California Berkeley; Julia Payson, New York University; Daniel Thompson, UCLA

• Mass Party Advantage under Party-Centered Local Governance - Tine N Paulsen, University of Southern California

• Democracy, Inequality, and Antitrust - Michael O. Allen, Yale University; Kenneth F. Scheve, Yale University; David Stasavage, New York University

• Progress or Backlash? The Political Effects of Affirmative Action Enforcement - Abhay Aneja, UC Berkeley; Jake M Grumbach, Princeton University