Splitting Hairs or Splitting Regions: The Differential Democratic Impacts of Splitting ZIP Codes vs. Counties During Redistricting
by Jacob Hervey
Abstract
In light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Gill v. Whitford, judicially-enforceable gerrymandering metrics must focus on democratic harms to individual citizens, instead of state-wide measures of proportionality. Previous literature has suggested that gerrymandering metrics should focus on the extent to which congressional districts split preexisting geographic boundaries (namely, ZIP codes and counties). This work compares the differential democratic harms caused by ZIP code versus county splitting during redistricting across two domains. First, we exploit the changes during the 2010 redistricting process to construct a difference-in-difference model that captures changes in voters’ political knowledge as a function of their exposure to geographic splitting. Second, we predict district-level electoral outcomes from 2002-2018 based upon the extent of ZIP code and county splitting. Our results indicate that ZIP code and county splitting cause more significant democratic harms for different outcomes of interest. While county splitting has more negative consequences for constituents’ political knowledge,ZIP code splitting is more detrimental with regards to voter turnout.
Professor Patrick Bayer, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: D72, K16, H11
Asylum Determination within the European Union (EU): Whether Capacity and Social Constraints Impact the Likelihood of Refugee Status Determination
By Louden Paul Richason
This paper analyzes whether capacity and social constraints impact acceptance rates for asylum seekers in the European Union from 2000-2016. Theoretically people should receive asylum based on the criteria outlined in international law – a well founded fear of persecution – but the influx and distribution of applicants in the European Union suggests that this may not hold in practice. For a group of pre identified “legitimate” asylum cases, this paper finds that surges in applications in a country (i.e. capacity constraints) have a positive and statistically significant correlation with acceptance rates, while the percentage of migrants in a country (i.e. social constraints) has a negative and statistically significant correlation with acceptance rates. This suggests that the burden of proof becomes easier during a surge in total applications in a country. However, as the international migrant stock in that country increases, it is more difficult for that same group of applicants to receive asylum.
Advisors: Professor Suzanne Shanahan, Professor Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: D73, D78, F22, H12, J11, J15, K37, O52
