Working Paper: NBER ID: w31759
Authors: Jacob R. Brown; Enrico Cantoni; Sahil Chinoy; Martin Koenen; Vincent Pons
Abstract: We ask how childhood environment shapes political behavior. We measure young voters’ participation and party affiliation in nationally comprehensive voter files and reconstruct their childhood location histories based on their parents’ addresses. We compare outcomes of individuals who moved between the same origin and destination counties but at different ages. Those who spend more time in the destination are more influenced by it: Growing up in a county where their peers are 10 percentage points more likely to become Republicans makes them 4.7 percentage points more likely to become Republican themselves upon entering the electorate. The effects are of similar magnitude for Democratic partisanship and turnout. These exposure effects are primarily driven by teenage years, and they persist but decay after the first election. They reflect both state-level factors and factors varying at a smaller scale such as peer effects.
Keywords: childhood environment; political behavior; voter participation; party affiliation
JEL Codes: D72; P00
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| growing up in a county where peers are 10 percentage points more likely to become Republicans (C92) | individual's likelihood of becoming a Republican (D79) |
| spending one's entire childhood in a county with a 10 percentage point increase in Republican outcomes (J18) | likelihood of registering as a Republican (K16) |
| growing up in a county where peers are 10 percentage points more likely to become Democrats (J79) | individual's likelihood of becoming a Democrat (J79) |
| 10 percentage point increase in permanent resident outcomes (I24) | individual turnout (D72) |
| moving to the destination county at a younger age (R23) | influence by that environment on political behavior (D72) |
| childhood environment (J13) | political behavior (D72) |
| ages 13 to 19 (J13) | influence on political behavior (D72) |
| state-level factors, such as electoral procedures (K16) | voter turnout (K16) |
| factors varying at the substate level, such as peer effects (C92) | partisan affiliation (D72) |