Essays in applied microeconomics

This dissertation contains three chapters that study topics on applied microeconomics. Below are the individual abstracts. Chapter 1: Effects of E-commerce on Local Labor Markets How has the expansion of e-commerce over the past decade affected labor markets? Utilizing the variation of state legislation on e-commerce sales tax collection -the Amazon Tax- which reduced out-of-state e-commerce retailers’ price advantage, I find declines in employment and wages in complementary sectors of ecommerce, such as warehousing and last-mile transportation. In the retail sector, I observe declines in local employment and the number of establishments. Effects in retail are heterogeneous by sub-sector. While big box retail employment increases, other brick-and-mortar retail employment decreases. As the Amazon Tax may induce brick-and-mortar retailers to incorporate online channels, I analyze changes in retail occupational structure. In non-urban areas, I find an increase in the share of office and service occupations and a decrease in the share of sales and related occupations. Through a general equilibrium model, I find that these results are consistent with an economy in which consumers substitute e-commerce purchases for big box purchases, which leads to the crowding out of other brick-and-mortar retail. Chapter 2: The Tribal Digital Divide: Extent and Explanations This paper documents home Internet access, types of Internet access, connection speeds, and prices for basic home Internet in tribal areas of the United States. We find that the share of households with Internet access is 21 percentage points lower in tribal areas than in neighboring non-tribal areas. When compared to these nontribal areas, download speeds, whether measured using fixed or mobile broadband networks, are approximately 75% slower in tribal areas, while the lowest price for basic Internet services in tribal areas is 11% higher. Regression techniques reveal that traditional cost factors such as terrain and population density fully explain the price gap but account for only a fraction of the tribal differences in Internet access and connection speeds. Income differences are strong predictors of Internet access but do not affect connection speeds. A sizable amount of the variation in the access and home connection gap between tribal and non-tribal is left unexplained. We conclude with a discussion of how federal broadband programs have penetrated Indian Country, how tribal-specific factors are related to the variation in Internet access within Indian Country, and the potential policy implications of our findings. Chapter 3: Group dynamics and Party Switching: Evidence from Argentina’s Roll Calls Party switching is extremely common in Argentina, where one out of four legislators have switched parties in the last decades. Using a novel dynamic panel data set, constructed by collecting more than 420,000 votes from Argentina’s House of Representatives, this paper studies the determinants of party switching and group dynamics in Argentina. This work estimates the relevance of legislative voting behavior, the power configuration, reputational costs and Argentinian political system characteristics as key features of legislator’s decision to switch. I find that traditional determinants of party switching, as ideological Distance, loyalty to party leaders, or pivotal power of the party, play an important role on the likelihood of party switching. Moreover, party switching varies along the legislative cycle and party switchers look to reduce the reputational cost associated with the switch by switching at the same time as their peers.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Bauer, Anahid

Contributors dc:contributor

• Forsythe, Elizabeth C
• Thornton, Rebecca L
• Bartix, Alexander W
• Clougherty, Joseph A
• Feir, Donn. L

• E-commerce
• Retail
• Employment
• Amazon Tax
• Digital divide
• Broadband
• Connectivity
• Indian country
• American Indians
• Argentina
• Political Parties
• Legislatures
• Party Switching

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Anahid Bauer

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115910

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115910