Rourke O’Brien

⚠️ New timely WP ⚠️ Rising wealth inequality and democratic backsliding at the US state-level #EconSky #Sociology #PolicySky
@stone-lis.bsky.social WP here: doi.org/10.31235/osf...

The Advances in Social Genomics Conference Social genomics researchers from across the world convene at the University of Wisconsin–Madison each year to discuss advances in the field.

**Call for Papers**

The Advances in Social Genomics Conference Series (TAGC)
May 14-16, 2025
UW-Madison @uwmadison.bsky.social
Deadline for submissions: March 7, 2025

Funding available for presenters

Keynotes: Kelly Bakulski and Dan Belsky

isg.wisc.edu/events/the-a...

Thanks @glebeda.bsky.social for pulling this list together!

Consider this a bat signal for population health scientists everywhere... let's GOOOOO. go.bsky.app/FP7rYaJ

Thanks Janet! 🙏

The GC Wealth Project - an invaluable source for data and research on wealth and wealth-related policies - continues to grow. Check out the latest expansion and update!
@stone-lis.bsky.social @morellisal.bsky.social 👇👇👇

Sure! The estimate is small, esp net of covars; tho if there was a massive change to fiscal structure those measures (e.g., dispersion of HH poverty) would change as well.

Depends on spending LEVEL, too -- centralizing an area with low spending would do little to reduce spatial variation...

thanks!! hope you are well!

👋 yep: 1SD in FC index associated with 10% SD change in mobility COV (so 0.1 * .04)

Why Poor American Kids Are So Likely to Become Poor Adults Most scholarship on the subject focuses on conditions during childhood. But government support during adulthood plays the biggest role.

Child poverty in the U.S. is four times as likely to lead to adult poverty than in Denmark and Germany, and twice as likely than in the UK and Australia. Why? I write about our findings on "the intergenerational persistence of poverty" today in The Atlantic:
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

🙏

Thanks, Frank! And...agreed!

ah thank you Sasha, very kind! 🙏

Overall we argue that the 'fiscal structures' we inherit from the past are key to understanding contemporary variation in social outcomes.

Especially in the U.S. which has a remarkably complex system of public finance + unlike other federal countries, lacks a national fiscal equalization policy.

We go on to show that fiscal centralization reduces spatial inequality in mobility outcomes by "leveling up" the worst performing census tracts in a county.

We find there is indeed less place-based inequality in economic mobility outcomes in more centralized fiscal structures.

This association is apparent at both the state and local (county) levels.

We use data from Opportunity Insights to estimate the degree of cross-census-tract inequality (variation) in the economic mobility outcomes of low-income (p25) children within each state and within each county.

We measure Fiscal Centralization for each state and each county using a novel index.

In the study we hypothesize that more centralized fiscal structures will exhibit less spatial inequality (variation) in the economic mobility outcomes of low-income children.

Why? Many reasons. One: where government is more centralized, less variation in intensity of public sector across places.

County area fiscal centralization is similarly sticky.

Here we show state and county centralization has changed little from 1977 to 2017, despite rise of inequality between households and between places.

Notice wide variation in the fiscal centralization of the 50 states - does not map on to contemporary differences in politics or sociodemographics or economies.

For example, stark difference in the centralization of neighboring states AR and TN we trace to origins in 18th & 19th century

State fiscal centralization is the fraction of all fiscal action in a state performed by the state gov vs counties/cities/towns/districts.

County area fiscal centralization is the fraction of all fiscal action in a county area performed by the county government vs cities/towns/districts.

Fiscal centralization captures the extent to which government action (spending, revenues, public employment) is located at the higher level of government.

Centralization of state and local fiscal structures is a byproduct of place-specific founding circumstances and path-dependent trajectories

Prior research finds government spending to be a key driver of place-based differences in the economic mobility outcomes of low-income children.

In this study we ask, net of the spending level does the FISCAL CENTRALIZATION of state and local governments shape the spatial patterning of mobility?

"Fiscal Centralization and Inequality in Children's Economic Mobility"

New research with @schechtlm.bsky.social @zparolin.bsky.social just out in ASR doi.org/10.1177/0003...

#sociology #demography #econsky

Great opportunity 👇

Rad can I be added too? Thanks!

Could you add me to this list? Thanks!

👋

Thrilled to announce that I am joining UNC-Chapel Hill this fall as Assistant Professor of Public Policy! Many thanks to @stone-lis.bsky.social and everyone who helped me get there.

Now online at Nature Human Behaviour: "Consumption Responses to an Unconditional Child Allowance in the U.S." We study how the 2021 CTC expansion affected family expenditures using observed (rather than reported) consumption data from 1.3 million establishments. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interested in mortality? Apply for a POSTDOC with @drjenndowd.bsky.social. I can confirm that it’s a great team & research community!

🗓️: deadline 25 Jan
⏳: 3-years
💷: Grade 7 (£36,024-£44,263)
🧐: investigate the drivers of population mortality!
📍: Oxford, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science