About me
I am a Ph.D. student in Northwestern University’s Economics Department. I use applied-micro tools to study political economics and economic history.
Contact me at: netanel.bp@gmail.com
Research
Working Papers
Submitted. [PDF]
Abstract: I argue that as poorer populations get political power, it is more important for elites to ensure they support the governing institution. Consequently, following democratization, elites spend more resources on schooling as a nation-building device. To show this empirically, I study the British Second Reform Act of 1867, which enfranchised poorer urban males. Exploiting its differential impact across locations, time, and birth cohorts, I show that the Reform increased public funding for education, boosted school attendance, expanded the supply of teachers, and reduced child labor force participation. These changes enhanced the literacy and numeracy skills of affected cohorts. Because schools were mixed-gendered, these gains also extended to still disenfranchised women. Investigating the underlying mechanisms, I find no evidence that the improvements were driven by heightened responsiveness to working-class demands. Instead, the results suggest that elites strategically supported schooling to shape the new electorate’s preferences. Overall, this study highlights the interplay among democratic transitions, nation-building efforts, and human capital accumulation.
Submitted. [PDF]
Abstract: While many socialist countries suffered from harsh economic crises, studying their impacts on economic and political attitudes is challenging because of the scarcity of reliable data in non-democratic contexts. We study a democratic socialist setting where we have ample information on such attitudes: the Israeli kibbutzim. Exploiting an economic crisis that hit some kibbutzim more than others, we find that the crisis led to reduced support for leftist political parties. This effect persisted for over 20 years after the crisis had ended. We document that the electoral movement was rooted in a rightward shift in economic attitudes, suggesting that economic crises may undermine socialist regimes by silently changing attitudes toward them. In our unique setting, we can also study recovery mechanisms from the crisis. First, we find that while a sharp debt relief arrangement restored trust in the leadership, it did not reverse the impact of the crisis on economic attitudes. Second, as part of their efforts to recover from the crisis, kibbutzim liberalized their labor markets. Analyzing the staggered shift away from equal sharing to market-based wages, we find that this labor market liberalization led kibbutz members to move further rightward in their political voting and economic attitudes.
Submitted. [PDF]
Abstract: We document that during 1992-2019, the election of American female state legislators increased the local abortion rate. To establish causality, we adopt a close-elections approach. Specifically, in a methodological contribution, we implement the novel Regression Discontinuity Aggregation method. The documented effect is driven by Democratic women, who mold reproductive regulation. Despite generally having similar views on abortions, male Democrats do not produce a similar effect. Further analysis suggests that female Democrats’ heightened influence on reproductive policy stems from their prioritization of these issues. These findings suggest that in competitive landscapes, politicians’ traits may influence their behavior by altering their willingness to invest resources on various policies.ms not from women viewing abortions differently than men but from them prioritizing reproductive issues. We conclude that in competitive systems, politicians’ individual preferences may alter legislative behavior primarily by determining how they allocate political resources.