About

Christopher R. Berry is an associate professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. His research interests are in the political economy of American local government and the politics of federal spending. He explores how the institutional design of local government influences political accountability and public policy, as well as how executive and legislative politics affect the geographic distribution of federal outlays. Professor Berry is the author of Imperfect Union: Representation and Taxation in Multilevel Governments and has numerous scholarly publications. His academic background includes a BA from Vassar College, a Master of Regional Planning from Cornell University, and a PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Prior to his current role, he was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University in the Department of Government's Program on Education Policy and Governance. He is also active in community development and was formerly a director in the MetroEdge division of ShoreBank, a community development financial institution.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economics
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Social psychology
• Philosophy
• Public economics
• Virology
• Development economics
• Law
• Statistics
• Macroeconomics
• Business
• Law and economics
• Economic growth
• Demographic economics
• Management science
• Epistemology
• Mathematics
• Econometrics
• Medicine
• Gerontology

Selected publications

• <i>De jure</i> and <i>de facto</i> property tax rates in large US cities

  Public Budgeting &amp Finance · 2024-12-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Scholars and policymakers have long been interested in measuring the relative property tax burden across cities. Most existing estimates rely on statutory rates and other official metrics to compute the prevailing tax rate in a city. Yet, a crucial feature of the property tax is that it is levied on estimated values rather than transaction prices. Without accounting for the quality of the estimated values it is impossible to know the effective tax rate. In this paper, I compute effective tax rates from micro data on property sales, aligning the tax due in the sale year with the sale price. I compare the observed effective tax rates with the best available estimates based on official sources. Relative to prior estimates, I find that effective tax rates are (a) generally lower, due to lags in estimated values; (b) widely varying even within the same city, due to errors in estimated values; and (c) usually regressive, due to biases in estimated values. I discuss the implications of these findings for taxpayers and policymakers.

  PublisherDOI

• Modeling Theories of Women's Underrepresentation in Elections

  American Journal of Political Science · 2023 · 22 citations

  • Political Science
  • Demographic economics
  • Social psychology

  Abstract Research on women candidates in American elections uncovers four key facts: Women (i) are underrepresented among candidates, (ii) are underrepresented among office holders, (iii) perform better in office, and (iv) win open seats at equal rates to men. Scholars offer two types of explanations: Women are less willing to run than men, due to differential costs or a gap in self‐perceived qualification, or voters discriminate at the ballot box. We formally model these mechanisms. Lower willingness to run predicts the first three facts but not the fourth. Voter discrimination at the ballot box predicts the first three facts and creates competing effects with respect to the fourth. Thus, the major stylized facts cannot be explained without voter discrimination, whether overt or more subtle. We explore whether a close‐election regression discontinuity distinguishes the mechanisms; surprisingly, it does not.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Replication Files for: Modeling Theories of Women's Underrepresentation in Elections

  Harvard Dataverse · 2022-12-14

  datasetOpen access

  Research on women candidates in American elections uncovers four key facts: women are under-represented among i) candidates and ii) office holders, iii) perform better in office, and iv) win open seats at equal rates to men. Scholars offer two types of explanations: women are less willing to run than men, due to differential costs or a gap in self-perceived qualification, or voters discriminate at the ballot box. We formally model these mechanisms. Lower willingness to run predicts the first three facts but not the fourth. Voter discrimination at the ballot box predicts the first three facts and creates competing effects with respect to the fourth. Thus, the major stylized facts cannot be explained without voter discrimination, whether overt or more subtle. We explore whether a close-election regression discontinuity distinguishes the mechanisms; surprisingly, it doesn't.

  PublisherDOI

• 6 Reinterpreting

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-08-06

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• 3 All Else Equal

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-08-06

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Distinguishing

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-07-20

  book-chapter

  This chapter talks about identifying and evaluating implications that are not common implications of the alternatives on offer called distinguishing implication. Many mechanisms are at work in most real-world targets and it is important not to overinterpret a claim about distinguishing. It points out that distinguishing is rarely about arguing for one mechanism and against others, but it is about increasing what is known about whether a particular mechanism is at work. The chapter explains that distinguishing is essentially about the question on how convincing is the case that the mechanism plays a role in explaining what is going on in the target. It recounts Dell's (2015) work on the Mexican drug war that shows an association between PAN election victories and increases in drug-related violence.

  PublisherDOI

• Reassessing the Property Tax

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021 · 46 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Law and economics
  • Business
  • Economics
  DOI

• Theory and Credibility

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-07-20 · 4 citations

  book

  The credibility revolution, with its emphasis on empirical methods for causal inference, has led to concerns among scholars that the canonical questions about politics and society are being neglected because they are no longer deemed answerable. This book stakes out an opposing view—presenting a new vision of how, working together, the credibility revolution and formal theory can advance social scientific inquiry. The book covers the conceptual foundations and practicalities of both model building and research design, providing a new framework to link theory and empirics. Drawing on diverse examples from political science, it presents a typology of the rich set of interactions that are possible between theory and empirics. This typology opens up new ways for scholars to make progress on substantive questions and enables researchers from disparate traditions to gain a deeper appreciation for each other's work and why it matters. The book shows theorists how to create models that are genuinely useful to empirical inquiry, and helps empiricists better understand how to structure their research in ways that speak to theoretically meaningful questions.

  PublisherDOI

• All Else Equal

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-07-20

  book-chapter

  This chapter explains some subtleties of how all-else-equal claims work, showing how these types of claims fit together to achieve commensurability. It emphasizes the different obligations the all-else-equal caveat places on theorists and empiricists. It also points out that the analysis of all-else-equal claims in theory and empirics suggests that the tools of the credibility revolution have broader applicability than is often appreciated, which are essential for assessing any all-else-equal claim, whether or not it has a causal interpretation. The chapter discusses the formal theory and credible research designs that are natural complements because their shared attention to all-else-equal conditions strengthens commensurability. It highlights important differences in how all-else-equal claims arise in theoretical and empirical work and how a thorough treatment of commensurability requires sensitivity to differences.

  PublisherDOI

• Theory and Credibility : Integrating Theoretical and Empirical Social Science

  2021 · 74 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Sociology

Frequent coauthors

• Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

  University of Chicago

  29 shared

• Scott Ashworth

  University of Chicago

  29 shared

• William G. Howell

  19 shared

• Jacob E. Gersen

  Massachusetts School of Law

  13 shared

• Dan Alexander

  University of Rochester

  10 shared

• Nolan McCarty

  8 shared

• Boris Shor

  7 shared

• Edward L. Glaeser

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  7 shared

Labs

• Harris School of Public PolicyPI

Education

• B.A.

  Vassar College

• Other

  Cornell University

• Ph.D.

  University of Chicago

Awards & honors

• NIHCM Foundation Research Award (2018)