CCPR Seminar

"How Deep is the COVID-19 Recession? Evidence from Kenya and Beyond"
Edward Miguel, UC Berkeley
Abstract: Despite numerous journalistic accounts, systematic quantitative evidence on the evolution of economic conditions during the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic remains scarce for most low and middle income countries, in part due to the limitations of official economic statistics in environments with large informal sectors and subsistence agriculture. I will focus on novel evidence from a detailed and large-scale panel data collection effort in rural Kenya, documenting the evolution of living standards over time as well as the effects of an earlier cash transfer program. I also discuss results from over 30,000 respondents in an ensemble of 16 original household survey samples collected in nine countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The data documents declines in employment and income across socioeconomic strata beginning in March 2020, resulting in widespread food insecurity and the risk of persistent adverse effects, especially among children and other vulnerable groups.
Bio: Prof. Miguel's research focus is African economic development, including work on the economic causes and consequences of violence; the impact of ethnic divisions on local collective action; interactions between health, education, environment, and productivity for the poor; and methods for transparent social science research.

Giovanni Peri, UC Davis

Bio: Giovanni Peri has expertise in labor economics, urban economics and the economics of international migrations. In addition to his appointment in the Department of Economics, he is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the founding director of the UC Davis Migration Research Cluster.

Voting after Shelby: Did pre-clearance matter?
Ariel White, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract: Nearly five decades after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the law was dramatically changed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder. The court effectively removed the “preclearance” process that had required places with a history of racial discrimination to get Justice Department approval before changing their voting procedures. Dissenting justices and voting-rights advocates feared that this decision could lead to massive changes to election administration and ultimately to lower rates of voter participation in minority communities. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of this decision on election practices and on Black and Hispanic voter registration and turnout. We use a combination of administrative data on registration and voting, survey data on mobilization and local election administration, and state legislative records to examine different facets of the voting rights landscape after the Court's decision.
Bio: Prof. White research focuses on voting and voting rights, race, the criminal justice system, and bureaucratic behavior. Prof. White's work uses large datasets to measure individual-level experiences, and to shed light on people's everyday interactions with government.