Research

I analyze the effect of the 2018 trade war on ambient levels of air quality in the United States of America. Domestic tariffs placed by the US on imported foreign goods and foreign tariffs applied to US exports by other countries have the potential to impact US production, which can translate into emissions and ambient pollution concentrations. Using the EPA's Air Quality dataset and satellite PM2.5 data, I implement a shift-share methodology and find that exposure to domestic tariffs does not result in any worsening of pollution conditions. Exposure to domestic and foreign tariffs do not have statistically different effects.

We exploit judge retirements from the Social Security Disability Insurance judicial corps to document how remaining judges respond to workplace disruptions. When a peer judge retires, the remaining judges see a 5 percent increase in dispositions and decisions that lasts 6 months. Institutional features of the disability appeal process allow us to estimate what happens to judge decisions when caseloads increase, holding the composition of cases fixed. Increased caseloads are accompanied by a 1 percent decrease in the judges’ share of favorable decisions, suggesting 16,600 claimants in-sample were not awarded disability insurance who would have been, absent the workplace disruption.

In this article, we present statacons, an SCons-based build tool for Stata. Because of the integration of Stata and Python in recent versions of Stata, we are able to adapt SCons for Stata workflows without the use of an external shell or extensive configuration. We discuss the usefulness of build tools generally, provide examples of the use of statacons in Stata workflows, present key elements of the syntax of statacons, and discuss extensions, alternatives, and limitations. We provide recommendations for collaborative workflows and, at the end of the article, installation instructions.

Environmental conditions, such as temperature and pollution, have been shown to influence human behavior, including risk-taking, criminal activity, and cognitive performance. I investigate how temperature and air pollution impact lottery sales in North Carolina. Using data on daily lottery ticket sales at the zip code level from July 2006 to June 2023, I analyze the relationship between environmental conditions and gambling behavior. I find results that suggest an additional 10 days of increased pollution would result in \$3 million of increased income from the state lottery. My research contributes to the literature by providing an example of the effect of pollution on cognitive behavior on a large spatial scope.