When your ballot and your address tell two different stories
Join us as the Economics Department welcomes Corey Lang, Professor of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics at the University of Rhode Island, for a seminar on his latest working paper. Professor Lang will present new research, co-authored with Jarron VanCeylon, that examines a puzzling inconsistency in American political behavior: Democrats and Republicans consistently diverge on ballot measures funding public goods like parks, open space, and public schools, yet both groups show similar preferences for neighborhoods near those very same amenities when choosing where to live.
To find out why, the researchers surveyed over 17,000 registered voters across five states, linking stated voting preferences to actual residential locations. They found that where someone lives tells us almost nothing about how they'll vote on measures to fund local public goods. Instead, core values such as altruism, individualism, and attitudes toward risk explain most of the observed partisan gap, raising questions about how direct democracy supplies public goods and how economists measure what people value.
We hope you can join us for this free event.