Myles Ellis

I study how statehouse resources shape reliance on special interest group originated "copycat" legislation (legislation based on templates created by interest groups). I compile a novel dataset on copycat legislation, bills, and politicians in all 50 states and the U.S. Congress. I document greater template originated text reuse in lower-resourced legislatures. I next evaluate bill sponsorship among politicians who switch from state to federal government to make a causal argument that legislative capacity shapes legislative autonomy. After entering the highly resourced U.S. Congress, legislators from lower-resourced statehouses sponsor less copycat legislation relative to those from high-resourced statehouses.

We study how a uniform statewide intervention performs under heterogeneous local conditions. We extend a model in which catch-all policies lower production costs but impose misalignment costs where the local fit is poor. Our model predicts that gains are larger in schools where ex-ante fit of the policy was weakest and where personnel turnover responds more strongly to prior school performance. We examine these issues empirically in the context of the Achievement School District (ASD), created by Tennessee in 2010 to place underperforming schools under state oversight. Public Chapter 490 changed ASD exit rules in 2021 by expanding the transition options for eligible charter schools. We test the predictions of our model by using district capacity, charter operator performance and personnel turnover. We also evaluate student outcomes by comparing ASD to a more localized policy before and after Public Chapter 490 using a difference-in-differences design.

I first document a slight short-run convergence in the wealth gap between Black and white Americans following the global financial crisis (GFC). At the same time, white and Black trust in banking institutions converged downward in the immediate aftermath of the GFC. I also highlight differential exposure to the banking system, with Black households less exposed than white households, and establish a relative increase in Black household leverage as one plausible explanation for the temporary attenuation of the racial wealth gap. This widening racial leverage gap coincided with a temporary narrowing of the racial gaps in wealth and homeownership.