SOCIAL STUDIES |
Moving on up
Low-income households have been paying more and more for housing in recent decades, even adjusting for inflation. Are they getting their money’s worth or are they paying more for equally crappy places? Economists analyzed data going back to 1985 from the American Housing Survey, in which Census Bureau interviewers go to the same large sample of housing units every two years. The economists found that the condition, features, and size of the homes of low-income households have substantially improved, and that the typical low-income household now lives in a home whose quality is similar to that of the average household across all incomes in 1985. Hembre, E. et al., “A Rising Tide Lifts All Homes? Housing Consumption Trends for Low-Income Households Since the 1980s,” Journal of Public Economics (May 2024).
Flooding the zone
Political scientists incorporated 12 shell companies that were ostensibly in the consulting business. They gave all the companies names that were simply four-letter acronyms. Then the researchers sent emails to the thousands of banks around the world that are connected to the international wire transfer network, asking if they could open accounts. It was essentially a test of how diligently the banks follow “know-your-customer” regulations that are meant to prevent shady banking transactions. The good news is that only a small percentage of banks appeared to be lax in complying with know-your-customer standards. The bad news is that this percentage didn’t vary much based on the location of the shell company, even though many of them came from countries known to be riskier in this regard. So, as the authors note, “the ease of approaching many banks simultaneously online may mean that criminals seeking to access the international financial system anonymously can do so relatively easily.” Findley, M. et al., “Banking Bad? A Global Field Experiment on Risk, Reward, and Regulation,” American Journal of Political Science (forthcoming).
Voting for women entrepreneurs
A recent study found that having a congresswoman, especially a Republican one, makes it more likely that women-owned businesses in that congressional district will be awarded federal contracts set aside for small businesses. This amounts to a reallocation of billions of dollars to women-owned businesses, but it isn’t associated with worse contract terms or performance for the government. The effect increases over the congresswoman’s tenure and if she’s on a key committee. It is not explained by changes in the pool of available contractors. Brogaard, J. et al., “The Effect of Female Leadership on Contracting From Capitol Hill to Main Street,” Journal of Financial Economics (May 2024).
Enlarging the pool of cops
A small and shrinking percentage of the nation’s police departments, including Boston’s, require officers to reside within the city. One argument for the residency requirement is that officers should be representative of the city instead of being suburban commuters. A new study finds that, indeed, police departments became whiter after dropping their residency requirement. At the same time, however, these departments saw a significant decrease in fatal encounters with police, and the evidence suggests civilian complaints decreased too. The researchers say dropping the residency requirement tends to “be accompanied by a series of other reforms that might indicate an agency is proactively trying to improve police-community relations.” Payson, J. & Parinandi, S., “Residency Blues: The Unintended Consequences of Police Residency Requirements,” Journal of Politics (forthcoming).
Mr. Smith goes to Washington
A political scientist at Cornell University found that the pronounceability of a congressional candidate’s last name was associated with approximately one to two percentage points more votes in primary elections and somewhat less than that in general elections, even taking into account race, gender, name length, political party, incumbency, state, and year. For example, a primary-election candidate with the last name Porterfield would be expected to outperform an identical candidate with the last name Dovilla by at least one percentage point and an identical candidate with the last name Konetchy by three percentage points. Harris, J., “Does Brown Beat Biesiada? Name Fluency and Electoral Success,” Electoral Studies (April 2024).