Ethan Kaplan

About

Ethan Kaplan is a Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland at College Park. His research spans the areas of political economy, labor economics, applied microeconomics, economic inequality, and empirical macroeconomics. He has contributed to understanding the political control over redistricting, the effects of school desegregation on ideology and attitudes, political polarization, campaign contributions, voter turnout, and the political economy of labor unions. His work also explores the influence of media bias, the impact of natural disasters on special interest politics, and the political consequences of outsourcing and wages. Kaplan's scholarly output includes numerous articles published or accepted in leading economic journals such as the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. He has also authored book chapters on media bias and currency crises, and has been involved in policy analysis and public discourse through various policy papers and media coverage. His research is characterized by empirical analysis and a focus on the intersection of politics and economics, contributing to a deeper understanding of how political processes and economic policies interact.

Research topics

• Economics
• Geography
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Economic geography
• Econometrics
• Mathematics
• Political economy
• Public administration
• Law

Selected publications

• Partisan spatial sorting in the United States: A theoretical and empirical overview

  Journal of Public Economics · 2022 · 88 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Iceberg Theory of Campaign Contributions: Political Threats and Interest Group Behavior

  American Economic Journal Economic Policy · 2013-01-24 · 60 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We present a model where special interest groups condition contributions on the receiving candidate's support and also her opponent's. This allows interest groups to obtain support from contributions as well as from threats of contributing. Out-of-equilibrium contributions help explain the missing money puzzle. Our framework contradicts standard models in predicting that interest groups give to only one side of a race. We also predict that special interest groups will mainly target lopsided winn…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Political Economy of Discretionary Spending: Evidence from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

  Brookings Papers on Economic Activity · 2014-03-01 · 44 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We study in this paper the spatial allocation of expenditures in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), one of the largest discretionary funding bills in the history of the United States. Contrary to both evidence from previous fiscal stimulus programs and standard theories of legislative politics, we do not find evidence of substantial political targeting. The districts of party leaders did not receive more funds than those of rank-and-file legislators, nor did the districts of pivo…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Early Voting Laws, Voter Turnout, and Partisan Vote Composition: Evidence from Ohio

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2020 · 41 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  We estimate effects of early voting on voter turnout using a 2010 homogenization law from Ohio that forced some counties to expand and others to contract early voting. Using voter registration data, we compare individuals who live within the same 2 × 2 mile square block but in different counties. We find substantial positive impacts of early voting on turnout equal to 0.22 percentage points of additional turnout per additional early voting day. We also find greater impacts on women, Democrats, i…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nurse Unions and Patient Outcomes

  Industrial and Labor Relations Review · 2016-04-20 · 38 citations

  article

  The authors estimate the impact of nurse unions on health care quality using patient-discharge data and the universe of hospital unionization in California between 1996 and 2005. They find that hospitals with a successful union election outperform hospitals with a failed election in 12 of 13 potentially nurse-sensitive patient outcomes. Hospitals were more likely to have a unionization attempt if they were of declining quality, as measured by patient outcomes. When such differential trends are a…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Arindrajit Dubé

  99 shared

• Suresh Naidu

  85 shared

• Dani Rodrik

  6 shared

• Owen Thompson

  Williams College

  6 shared

• Stefano DellaVigna

  University of California, Berkeley

  5 shared

• Christopher Boone

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  5 shared

• Lucas Goodman

  5 shared

• Christopher Boone

  2 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  UC Berkeley

  2005

• Other

  Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University

Similar researchers at University of Maryland, College Park

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• Maureen Cropperh-61
• Sebastian Galianih-54