Three essays in applied microeconomics
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
This dissertation comprises three essays that examine how cognitive biases, institutional design, and physiological costs shape political behavior and electoral outcomes. Chapter 1 investigates whether mere exposure to (and thus familiarity with) candidate names can directly influence voter decisions. Using data from Louisiana local elections, U.S. state legislature elections, and Atlantic tropical storm names from 1980 to 2022, I find that down-ballot candidates experience an increase in vote share of 6.2–9.7 percentage points when a hurricane with the same name impacts the state prior to the election. This effect persists after accounting for the inherent popularity of specific names and potential strategic candidate responses, providing novel evidence that familiarity-based attention—independent of information transmission—plays a significant role in shaping voter choices in low-information elections. Chapter 2 studies whether voters' cognitive biases affect political candidates' entry decisions. Building on the insight that in down-ballot elections, voters tend to choose the first-listed candidate due to choice fatigue and the primacy effect, I conjecture that potential candidates with late-alphabet surnames, expecting positional disadvantages on an alphabetically ordered ballot, are less likely to run for office. Using within-state variation in ballot order rules and data on 341,156 candidates running for U.S. state legislatures from 1967 to 2022, I find that alphabetically ordered ballots result in a 3.68 percentage-point decrease in the representation of late-alphabet candidates (equivalent to a 16.4\% reduction). This shift in composition is primarily driven by a decline in late-alphabet candidates running for office, which exacerbates the overall shortage of candidates in state elections and may unintentionally impact minority candidate entry due to distinctive distributions of surname initials across racial and ethnic groups. Chapter 3 extends the calculus-of-voting framework by identifying circadian misalignment as a novel cost of electoral participation. Exploiting the fall transition of Daylight Saving Time, which sets clocks back one hour, I leverage quasi-experimental variation from Arizona's nonobservance of DST and variation in the timing of the transition relative to Election Day. Using both a geographic regression discontinuity difference-in-differences design and a national analysis of individual-level voter records, I find that voter turnout is lower in general elections following the DST transition. This decline is partly driven by a time-compression channel: effects are more pronounced in areas with earlier sunsets, rural areas, and among voters with longer commutes, while access to convenient voting options attenuates these effects. Turnout declines are concentrated among Republicans, leading to systematic shifts in electoral composition.
Description
2026