Essays in Labor Economics

Abstract

I study systems that are crucial to understanding and alleviating racial inequality in the United States. The projects contained in this dissertation examine federal oversight and policing. In my first two chapters, I focus on the criminal justice system, specifically policing. In Chapter 1, I examine how federal oversight affects policing and public safety through a case study of the Seattle Police Department. In Chapter 2, I evaluate whether police officers use adjectives and adverbs that systematically differ by suspect race (race-predictive language) and whether race-predictive language use correlates with officer characteristics. Finally, in Chapter 3, I examine how federal regulatory capacity affects state enforcement in the context of environmental regulation.