Published Research

President Barack Obama’s two signature first-term legislative victories—the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act—are the law of the land, but the political battle over their entrenchment continues. The question now is whether these landmark reforms will be consolidated and create a new politics going forward.

We examine the effect of race on market outcomes by selling iPods through local online classified advertisements throughout the United States. Each ad features a photograph including a dark- or light-skinned hand, or one with a wrist tattoo.

Development of regional innovation system (RIS) and its role in regional development is a debated research topic. Most of the theoretical and empirical works are traditionally focused on RIS situated within a national context and applies institutional theory.

Reprinted in Andrew J. Nathan and Marc F. Plattner (eds.), Will China Democratize? (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), pp. 44-50.

Objectives Researchers have used repeated cross sectional observations of homicide rates and sanctions to examine the deterrent effect of the adoption and implementation of death penalty statutes. The empirical literature, however, has failed to achieve consensus.

Many believe that the War on Poverty, launched by President Johnson in 1964, ended in failure. In 2010, the official poverty rate was 15 percent, almost as high as when the War on Poverty was declared. Historical and contemporary accounts often portray the War on Poverty as a costly experiment that created doubts about the ability of public policies to address complex social problems.

When party leaders seek support, who heeds the call and who remains unswayed? The canonical error-free spatial model of voting predicts the targeting of fence-sitting moderates.