Showing papers by "Joshua C. Hall published in 2021"

Stay-at-home orders were issued earlier in economically unfree states.

Abstract: Stay-at-home orders curtailed the individual liberty of those across the United States. Governors of some states moved swiftly to impose the lockdowns. Others delayed and a few even refused to implement these policies. We explore common narratives of what determines the speed of implementation, namely partisanship and virus exposure. While correlation exists, we show that the most consistent explanation for the speed of the implementation of these orders is the state's economic freedom. It was the economically unfree states that issued stay-at-home orders earlier.

The political economy of Vermont’s anti-fracking movement

Abstract: In 2012, Vermont became the first state in the US to ban hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil production despite having zero known natural gas reserves. We evaluate the role of legislator and median voter characteristics on Vermont General Assembly voting outcomes on Act 152, which essentially bans fracking in the state. Using a double-selection post-Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator approach, we find evidence that campaign donations and being a member of the Democratic Party are positively related to voting to ban fracking. Median voter characteristics appear not to play an essential role in shaping legislator voting behaviour, corroborating the theory of expressive voting on the decision to ban fracking in Vermont.

Did Politicians Use Non-Public Macroeconomic Information in Their Stock Trades? Evidence from the STOCK Act of 2012

Abstract: Existing research shows that members of Congress made informed trades prior to the passage of the STOCK Act of 2012. There is also evidence in the literature to suggest that the STOCK Act was able to deter politicians from trading based on non-public information. However, the question of whether politicians made informed trades at the market level (using non-public macroeconomic information, not just firm-specific information) in the first place and whether they continued to do so even after the passage of the STOCK Act remains unexamined. We analyze 101,191 individual stock transactions covering the 2004–2014 period and find that the STOCK Act adversely affected the ability of politicians’ aggregated stock trades to predict the stock market returns. Our results imply that politicians used non-public macroeconomic information prior to the STOCK Act, and this legislation was influential in deterring politicians from using non-public macroeconomic information in their stock trades. Our findings also provide input on the current debate on the need for the STOCK Act 2.0.

Aggregate congressional trading and stock market returns

Abstract: Purpose What information do members of Congress (politicians) use when they trade stocks? The purpose of this paper is to attempt to answer this question by investigating the relationship between an aggregate measure of trading by members of Congress (aggregate congressional trading) and future stock market returns. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow the empirical framework used in academic work on corporate insiders. In particular, they aggregate 61,998 common stock transactions by politicians over the 2004–2010 period and estimate time series regressions at a monthly frequency with heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation robust t-statistics. Findings The authors find that aggregate congressional trading predicts future stock market returns, suggesting that politicians use economy-wide (i.e. macroeconomic) information in their stock trades. The authors also present evidence that aggregate congressional trading is related to the growth rate of industrial production, suggesting that industrial production serves as a potential channel through which aggregate congressional trading predicts future stock market returns. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to document a relationship between aggregate congressional trading and stock market returns. The media and scholarly attention on politicians’ trades have mostly focused on the question of whether politicians have superior information on individual firms. The results from this study suggest that politicians’ informational advantage may go beyond individual firms such that they potentially have superior information on the overall trajectory of the economy as well.

Collective Action Problems and Direct Democracy: An Analysis of Georgia’s 2010 Trauma Care Funding Amendment

Abstract: In 2010, Georgians voted on a proposed constitutional amendment that would have increased motor vehicle licensing fees by USD 10 with the proceeds dedicated to maintaining and expanding the state’s trauma care centers. This paper examines voter support for the referendum across counties and finds (1) that counties located near trauma centers in neighboring states had significantly lower support for the amendment and (2) that counties already having trauma centers had higher support for the amendment. These results are, respectively, consistent with free-riding and rent-seeking on the part of voters.

The political economy of solar initiatives in the Sunshine state

Abstract: This study empirically examines the outcomes of two solar energy amendments that were on the ballot in Florida in 2016. One amendment exempts solar energy devices from ad valorem taxation, effectiv...

Measuring a Contract's Breadth: A Text Analysis

Abstract: We use a computational linguistic algorithm to measure the topics covered in the text of school teacher contracts in Ohio. We use the topic modeling metrics in a calculation of the concentration of topics covered. This allows us to assess how expansive each contract is. As a proof of concept, we evaluate the relationship between our topic diversity measurement and the prevalence of support staff. This test is done on a subsample of the contracts in the state. If more specialized services are provided, then contracts must presumably be broader as they cover more employment relationships. We confirm a strong, statistically significant relationship between our measurement and the prevalence of these support staff. Thus, we have a valid measurement of contract breadth.