Connor Hanna, University of Texas at Austin -- As a contributing factor to the rising cost of living in Austin, the lack of affordable housing has increasingly become a subject of public concern. I argue that minimum lot sizes and excessive single-family zoning have artificially constrained the supply of housing and that this supply constraint is raising housing costs overall.
Xingyou Ye, Renmin University of China -- The down payment constraint is commonly adopted as an effective means of stabilizing the housing market. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on its effects on house prices. We estimate the impact of raising the minimum down payment by exploiting Beijing municipal’s ordinary and non-ordinary housing policy.
Connor Brennan and Jamie Wang, Georgetown University -- It is well documented that firms wishing to affect immigration policy do so by lobbying to policymakers directly. Less documented is the reason why firms participating in corporate lobbying might also donate to charities related to immigration. Our paper studies this question by analyzing the effect of immigration lobbying on philanthropic activity among Fortune 500 and S&P 500 firms that donated and lobbied from 1999 to 2015.
Ashmit Vyas, University of Pennsylvania -- I estimate the effect of election-day voter registration (EDR) on the turnout and outcome of the 1992 presidential election in Rhode Island by conducting a difference-in-differences analysis against the gubernatorial election.
