Essays in Social Policy

Abstract

My dissertation examines the effects of information and education reaching low-resourced communities, using insights from labour economics, economic history, and political economy. Chapter one documents the role of information on northern life and jobs in the sparking the First Great Migration from 1915 to 1940, when 1.5 million Black southerners migrated north. Classifying the coverage of thousands of southern newspapers, I show that information about northern conditions was limited prior to the entry of the Chicago Defender, the most prominent northern Black newspaper, in the mid-1910s. To reach southern readers, the Chicago Defender partnered with Black railway porters working for the Illinois Central railroad. In cities along the railroad, I find that individuals who lived near a porter were 33% more likely to migrate north than similar individuals who did not. These individuals pulled relatives to migrate, consistent with information diffusion across social networks, and moved to cities that received more coverage in articles, ads, and job postings. Counties with access to the Chicago Defender were 1.5 times more likely to form an NAACP branch and experienced 1.4 times fewer lynchings. Chapter two, co-authored with Kevin Carney, studies the effects of India's "Happiness Curriculum,'' the world's largest social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum, reaching millions of students in grades 1--8. The Happiness Curriculum replaces the first 30 minutes of each school day with guided mindfulness meditation followed by stories and activities designed to help students understand their thoughts, emotions, and relationships. We conduct a randomized control trial in partnership with the state of Tripura following over 4,000 students for 2 years. We randomly assign grades to receive either the Happiness Curriculum, daily mindfulness practice, or teaching-as-usual. Students' math scores in SEL and mindfulness grades increase by 0.12 SD after 6 months and 0.29 SD after 2 years, equivalent to an additional year of learning. Math gains are driven by daily mindfulness practice and likely operate through improved reasoning and problem-solving. We observe little effect on measures of anxiety or depression. Our results reveal that programs targeting state of mind can be cost-effective ways to improve academic achievement. Chapter three, co-authored with Desmond Ang, Stephen Pettigrew, and Ben Schneer, studies the effects of a shift in the news media landscape from an ad-supported to a subscription-based model. We examine the impact of local newspaper paywalls on news consumption, online browsing behaviour, and the implications for voting, economic knowledge, and community engagement. We assemble the most comprehensive database to date tracking the implementation of paywalls for the universe of U.S. daily newspapers. We show that local newspapers skew right-leaning compared to other online news sources and attract readers who are older, whiter, and higher income. We find a sharp drop in time spent reading local newspapers after paywalls are implemented and a compositional shift toward wealthier readers. Individuals shift news consumption toward national news websites with more left-leaning ideological slant, soft news, and entertainment media. These substitution patterns cascade into a host of downstream outcomes, including a leftward shift in local residents' voting behaviour and decreased knowledge of local economic conditions and social activity.