Recent studies report that economic inequality is associated with reduced government expenditures on social programs. Several prominent social scientists, including Putman (Putnam, R., 2000. Bowling Alone. Simon and Schuster, New York), attribute this to the detrimental "psychosocial effects" of...

Scholars have proposed many routes by which campaign finance laws may impact turnout. For instance, laws restricting campaign spending may decrease mobilization, resulting in lower turnout. Alternatively, such laws might increase the competitiveness of elections, resulting in higher turnout....

We exploit the existence of substantial variation in state policies toward public health insurance for children between 1990 and 2002 to estimate the economic and political determinants of state eligibility levels. Controlling for state and year effects, eligibility levels are not significantly...