【Job Talk】Political Party Affiliation of Leaders and Traffic Stop Policing: Evidence from North Carolina
2025/12/22
研討會日期 : 2025-12-22
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Dr. Wei-Lin Chen (陳煒林)
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Bei Qin
演講者簡介 : Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California - San Diego in 2023. He is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Auckland University of Technology. His research fields are Public Economics, Development Economics, and Political Economy. He is applying for a position at the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica.
演講摘要 : I study how the party affiliation of elected sheriffs affects traffic stop enforcement in North Carolina. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that Democratic-to-Republican sheriff turnovers, compared to Democratic-to-Democratic transitions, increase the share of Black drivers in traffic stops by 3.8 percentage points (15.7%). The increase is concentrated in moving-violation stops and reflects both broad changes among incumbent officers and personnel reshuffling. Racial disparities in searches widen within moving-violation stops, while unconditional contraband finding rates and vehicle crash counts remain unchanged. Overall, the results underscore the role of leadership in shaping frontline policing.
