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Scholars have demonstrated that economic inequality in America is closely correlated to political polarization among America's political elites. The connection between the two is explained by the fact that the public's partisanship has become income-stratified because of polarized redistributive preferences. However, the correlation between income and partisanship weakened after the year 2000, and there is no empirical evidence of polarization in redistributive preferences. It is also unclear whether inequality and polarization have a causal relationship because of the complicated and endogenous nature of both trends. In this dissertation, I argue that unequal economic growth leads to political polarization in the American public. Instead of positing that aggregate inequality causes polarization, I focus on the economic experiences of individual voters and their effect on policy attitudes and social identities. I demonstrate that individuals whose living standards have stagnated are likely to have more socially conservative attitudes, stronger in-group solidarity, and out-group derogation, while individuals whose well-being has improved over time are likely to have socially liberal attitudes. To test this theoretical mechanism, I explore two aspects of my theory. First, I test whether income inequality and political polarization among the public are correlated and what dimension of policy preferences is polarized. I demonstrate that the degree of polarization within the public is very closely correlated with income inequality. Indeed, the correlation of income inequality with public polarization is as strong as the political polarization within Congress. Furthermore, I find that polarization is only present in identity politics with the social issues dimension, rather than the economic dimension. Second, I examine the individual and community effect of economic disruption. I show that individuals' fear of and anxiety about losing their economic status—the main psychological mechanism of my theory—causes them to have stronger racial resentment and ethnocentrism. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the regional economic disruption caused by Chinese imports causes voters to have more conservative attitudes about non-economic issues but not economic issues.

Women earn less than men who work in the same job with the same level of experience. We know much about this gender wage gap but relatively little about its political or partisan sources. In this article, we examine the effects of party control of state government on gender inequality in income, wages, unemployment, and poverty. Employing both a regression discontinuity design and a dynamic difference‐in‐difference analysis, we find that electing a Democratic majority to the state house leads to substantial improvement in women's incomes, wages, and unemployment relative to men—especially in recent years. We also show that greater female representation in office and more liberal policymaking on policies related to women's rights could be driving that process. We find, however, fewer clear effects on poverty and less robust results for partisan control of the governor's office or the state senate. Parties and politics matter, but not always.

Previous studies have shown that America generally has a low level of support for redistribution, in large part due to racial prejudice, particularly toward the poor. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has increased public attention to low-income workers' essential roles in society. Has this increased attention to low-income workers promote public support for redistribution? This article examines how priming about low-income workers' (1) essential roles and (2) race, shaped individuals' redistributive preferences. Our findings demonstrate that an emphasis on essential workers increased appreciation of their contribution to society and support for pandemic-related benefits for these workers. However, it did not increase support for redistribution or welfare programmes in general. In addition, while we found negative effects of a Latino cue, particularly among white respondents, this effect weakened when information about workers' work ethics and other attributes was provided. Our findings have implications for understanding public support of redistribution and communicating government social welfare programmes.

AbstractEmerging literature shows that rising import exposure resulting from the China shock devastated U.S. manufacturing and contributed to the rise of Donald Trump. However, several studies found that these recent localized economic shocks did not negatively impact the tenure of incumbent politicians, and this outcome remains a puzzle. In this paper, we examine the partisan difference in congressional communication strategies on China and trade‐related issues. We propose a theory of China‐bashing to explain how members of Congress frame the negative impacts of trade to their voters. Using press release data from members of Congress, we show that, even though Chinese import competition impacted both Republican‐ and Democrat‐held districts, Republican politicians in adversely affected districts responded by increasing their anti‐China rhetoric, while there was no similar difference among Democrats. At the same time, there was no difference between Republican and Democratic messaging on general trade issues. In doing so, Republican legislators were able to support trade liberalization during the Bush and Obama administrations while blaming its negative externalities to their constituents on China.

Mounting import competition from China has increased unemployment in manufacturing and suppressed wages in local labor markets around the United States. This article investigates the political effects of this China trade shock, using a unique dataset of the district-level economic impact of Chinese imports to the United States. The liberalization of trade following China's accession to the World Trade Organization increased political polarization among American voters and encouraged legislators in economically hard-hit districts to take positions hostile to China. The result is that Congress is even more hostile towards China today than in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Massacre. After 2003, members of Congress who voted against China were more likely to come from districts that were adversely impacted by import competition, controlling for ideology and partisanship. By contrast, import competition was not a significant predictor of earlier congressional opposition to granting most-favored-nation status to China (suggesting that voting on these crucial pieces of legislation was driven by non-economic concerns such as human rights). Far from being the political win–win its proponents envisioned, trade has eclipsed human rights and Taiwan as the main driver of hostility to China in Congress. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

Past research has demonstrated the racially and spatially uneven impacts of economic shocks and environmental disasters on various markets. In this article, we examine if and how the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the market for rental housing in the 49 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Using a unique data set of new rental listings gathered from Craigslist and localized measures of the pandemic's severity we find that, from mid-March to early June, local spread of COVID-19 is followed by reduced median and mean rent. However, this trend is driven by dropping rents for listings in Black, Latino, and diverse neighborhoods. Listings in majority White neighborhoods experience rent increases during this time. Our analyses make multiple contributions. First, we add to the burgeoning literature examining the rental market as a key site of perpetuating sociospatial inequality. Second, we demonstrate the utility of data gathered online for analyzing housing. And third, by reflecting on research that shows how past crises have increased sociospatial inequality and up-to-date work showing the racially and spatially unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss some possible mechanisms by which the pandemic may be affecting the market for rental housing as well as implications for long-term trends.