Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T05:18:39.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Property Ownership Lead to Participation in Local Politics? Evidence from Property Records and Meeting Minutes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2020

JESSE YODER Open the ORCID record for JESSE YODER [Opens in a new window]
JESSE YODER*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
*
Jesse Yoder, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Homeowners and renters have participated in politics at different rates throughout American history, but does becoming a property owner motivate an individual to participate in local politics? I combine deed-level property records in California and Texas with an original dataset on individual comments in local city council meetings to study the role of property ownership in shaping costly forms of political behavior, and I document large inequalities in who participates at city council meetings. I also link property records to individual-level contribution records and administrative voter files and find that becoming a property owner increases an individual’s political activity. Over and above voting in local elections, property ownership motivates individuals to participate in local city council meetings and donate to candidates. These findings illustrate how the experience of homeownership leads property owners to become much more active in local politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 1213 - 1229
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

For comments and suggestions, the author thanks Katie Einstein, Justin Grimmer, Andy Hall, Zhao Li, Zac Peskowitz, Dan Thompson, Matt Tyler, and participants in Stanford’s Democracy and Polarization Lab meetings, the 2019 Midwest Political Science Association conference, and the 2019 American Political Science Association conference. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RDIJQC.

References

Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James A.. 2005. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., and Pischke, Jörn-Steffen. 2008. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, De Figueiredo, John M., and Snyder, James M. Jr. 2003. “Why is There so Little Money in US Politics?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 (1): 105–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Hersh, Eitan D.. 2017. “ADGN: An Algorithm for Record Linkage Using Address, Date of Birth, Gender, and Name.” Statistics and Public Policy 4 (1): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Autor, David H. 2003. “Outsourcing at Will: The Contribution of Unjust Dismissal Doctrine to the Growth of Employment Outsourcing.” Journal of Labor Economics 21 (1): 1–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blei, David M., Ng, Andrew Y., and Jordan, Michael I.. 2003. “Latent Dirichlet Allocation.” Journal of Machine Learning Research 3 (1): 993–1022.Google Scholar
Bonica, Adam. 2014. “Mapping the Ideological Marketplace.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (2): 367–386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonica, Adam. 2016. Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections: Public version 2.0 [Computer file]. http://data.stanford.edu/dime.Google Scholar
Bonica, Adam, and Rosenthal, Howard. 2015. “The Wealth Elasticity of Political Contributions by the Forbes 400.” Working Paper. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2668780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Henry E., Verba, Sidney, and Schlozman, Kay Lehman. 1995. “Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 89 (2): 271–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. “An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy.” The Journal of Political Economy 65 (2): 135–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Einstein, Katherine Levine, Glick, David M., and LeBlanc, Conor. 2017. “2016 Menino Survey of Mayors.” http://www.bu.edu/ioc/files/2017/01/2016-Menino-Survey-of-Mayors-Final-Report.pdf.Google Scholar
Einstein, Katherine Levine, Palmer, Maxwell, and Glick, David M.. 2018. “Racial Disparities in Housing Politics: Evidence from Administrative Data.” Working Paper. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gsn2vzdi7djtmsp/ZoningParticipation_race.pdf?dl=0.Google Scholar
Einstein, Katherine Levine, Palmer, Maxwell, and Glick, David M.. 2019. “Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes.” Perspectives on Politics 17 (1): 28–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enamorado, Ted, Fifield, Benjamin, and Imai, Kosuke. 2019. “Using a Probabilistic Model to Assist Merging of Large-Scale Administrative Records.” American Political Science Review 113 (2): 353–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engerman, Stanley L., and Sokoloff, Kenneth L.. 2005. “The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World.” The Journal of Economic History 65 (4): 891–921.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischel, William A. 2001. The Homevoter Hypothesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fung, Archon. 2006. “Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance.” Public Administration Review 66: 66–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gay, Claudine. 2012. “Moving to Opportunity: The Political Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment.” Urban Affairs Review 48 (2): 147–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., Green, Donald P., and Larimer, Christopher W.. 2008. “Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 102 (1): 33–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Elisabeth R., and Phillips, Justin H.. 2003. “Development Ballot Measures, Interest Group Endorsements, and the Political Geography of Growth Preferences.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (4): 625–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaeser, Edward, and Gyourko, Joseph. 2018. “The Economic Implications of Housing Supply.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 32 (1): 3–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaeser, Edward L., and Ward, Bryce A.. 2009. “The Causes and Consequences of Land Use Regulation: Evidence from Greater Boston.” Journal of Urban Economics 65 (3): 265–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Donald P., Gerber, Alan S., and Nickerson, David W.. 2003. “Getting Out the Vote in Local Elections: Results from Six Door-to-Door Canvassing Experiments.” Journal of Politics 65 (4): 1083–1096.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Andrew B., and Yoder, Jesse. Forthcoming. “Does Homeownership Influence Political Behavior? Evidence from Administrative Data.” The Journal of Politics. https://www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/homeowner.pdf.Google Scholar
Hankinson, Michael. 2018. “When Do Renters Behave Like Homeowners? High Rent, Price Anxiety, and NIMBYism.” American Political Science Review 112 (3): 473—493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Highton, Benjamin. 2004. “Voter Registration and Turnout in the United States.” Perspectives on Politics 2 (3): 507–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Highton, Benjamin, and Wolfinger, Raymond E.. 2001. “The First Seven Years of the Political Life Cycle.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (1): 202–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imai, Kosuke, and Kim, In Song. 2020. “On the Use of Two-way Fixed Effects Regression Models for Causal Inference with Panel Data.” Working Paper. https://imai.fas.harvard.edu/research/files/FEmatch-twoway.pdf.Google Scholar
Jha, Saumitra, and Shayo, Moses. 2019. “Valuing Peace: The Effects of Financial Market Exposure on Votes and Political Attitudes.” Econometrica. 87 (5): 1561–1588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Seo-young Silvia. 2019. “Getting Settled in Your New Home: The Costs of Moving on Voter Turnout.” Working Paper. https://sysilviakim.com/research/.Google Scholar
Marble, William, and Nall, Clayton. 2019. “Where Self-Interest Trumps Ideology: Liberal Homeowners and Local Opposition to Housing Development.” Working Paper. https://www.dropbox.com/s/0cpefxjmqhrgkqg/interest_3_5.pdf?dl=0.Google Scholar
McCabe, Brian J. 2016. No Place like Home: Wealth, Community, and the Politics of Homeownership. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Meltzer, Allan H., and Richard, Scott F.. 1981. “A Rational Theory of the Size of Government.” Journal of Political Economy 89 (5): 914–927.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric, and Ha, Shang E.. 2007. “Vote Choice in Suburban Elections.” American Political Science Review 101 (3): 393–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric, Ha, Shang E., and Callen, Zachary. 2012. Local Elections and the Politics of Small-Scale Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Riker, William H., and Ordeshook, Peter C.. 1968. “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting.” American Political Science Review 62 (1): 25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Margaret E., Stewart, Brandon M., and Tingley, Dustin. 2014. “stm: R Package for Structural Topic Models.” Journal of Statistical Software VV (II): 12. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/stm/vignettes/stmVignette.pdf.Google Scholar
Squire, Peverill, Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Glass, David P.. 1987. “Residential Mobility and Voter Turnout.” American Political Science Review 81 (1): 45–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trounstine, Jessica. 2018. “The Geography of Inequality: How Land Use Regulation Produces Segregation and Polarization.” Working Paper. https://polmeth.byu.edu/Plugins/FileManager/Files/Papers/Trounstine_polmeth.pdf.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Brady, Henry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wong, Weihuang. 2018. “Our Town: Support for Housing Growth When Localism Meets Liberalism.” Working Paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3173813.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Yoder Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RDIJQC
Link
Supplementary material: File

Yoder supplementary material

Yoder supplementary material

Download Yoder supplementary material(File)
File 471.1 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.