Essays in Economic History and Social Policy

Abstract

This dissertation contains three chapters; the first two concern the economic history of education in the United States, and the third contemporary social policy. In the first chapter, I study inequality in college towns. I start with the observation that human capital institutions create social benefits that extend far beyond their physical reaches. However, the long-run equilibrium impact of such institutions on economic mobility and income segregation within the places they are located is less well understood. I establish the descriptive pattern that today, places with colleges have higher income segregation and lower economic mobility. To establish long-run causal effects, following Andrews (2023) I compare college placements with quasi-random runner-up towns in the historical college establishment process. I find that college establishments cause higher levels of contemporary income segregation but have little effect on economic mobility. As a mechanism, I show that college establishments cause larger growth in employment concentration in professional services. In the second chapter, co-authored with Danielle Graves Williamson, we study establishments of all-white private schools in the mid-20th century South. Institutionalized backlash may be an important mediator of social progress. In the post-Brown v. Board (1954) U.S. South, white citizens established explicitly segregationist private schools. These “segregation academies” effectively impeded efforts to integrate schools, especially in rural areas (Williamson 2024). In this chapter, we study the consequences of this preservation of segregation on historical voting behavior and later racial attitudes in the Southeast. We argue that segregation academies entrenched a culture of racial division in places that otherwise would have made steps toward integration. Using difference-in-differences designs around the openings of segregation academies, we find a suggestive contemporaneous shift away from the Democratic party in treated counties emerging in the medium-run. Studying later retrospective racial attitudes, we find no accompanying shift in conservative racial attitudes, but an increase in racism. We discuss potential explanations to reconcile these patterns. Finally, in the third chapter, co authored with Kelsey Pukelis and Alice Heath, we conduct a nationally-representative survey to study stigma in the context of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Stigma may reduce participation in social safety net programs and impose utility costs on individuals already receiving benefits. But who experiences stigma, how it affects participant decisions, and whether it can be reduced remain unclear. We find that stigma varies by political affiliation and SNAP participation status: Democrats report lower levels of stigmatizing beliefs than Republicans, and SNAP participants report lower levels of stigma than non-participants. Three randomized messaging interventions designed to reduce stigma have heterogeneous effects: they decrease stigma among Democrats and those with low expectations of judgment from others, increase stigma among Republicans, and have no effect on those with high expectations of judgment. One intervention that addresses a common zero-sum concern—that enrolling in SNAP prevents others from receiving benefits—increases interest in take-up among eligible non-participants while decreasing overall support for SNAP spending.