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We study racial disparities in police use of force. A pervasive issue in studies of policing is that the available data are selected by the police. As a result, disparities computed in the observed sample may be biased if selection into the data differs by race. We develop a framework and econometric strategy for correcting this bias, using variation across officers in enforcement intensity to identify the racial composition of the unobserved population at risk of selection. Using detailed administrative data on arrests and force incidents from Chicago and Seattle, we find that Black civilians comprise 56 percent of arrestees but about 49 percent of potential arrestees. Correcting for sample selection doubles our measure of the racial disparity in force rates. Decompositions of the corrected force disparity reveal that about 70 percent is unexplained by other demographic and incident characteristics, suggesting an important role for officer discrimination. Our selection bias estimates meaningfully impact the conclusions drawn in the existing literature.

The preferences of bureaucrats are a central determinant of how governments operate, yet little is known about how these preferences are formed and the relative importance of selection versus the treatment effect of government work. This paper studies these questions in the context of policing and asks how working as a police officer impacts political preferences. We link civil service exam records to data on voting and campaign contributions to test whether becoming a police officer affects political identity. Using difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity designs, we find that joining a police force increases Republican party affiliation, contributions to Republican campaigns, and voter turnout. The treatment effect of work can explain around 40% of the difference in party affiliation between police and the general population. We then show that political affiliation relates to on-the-job behavior: Republican officers make more arrests and use more force than comparable non-Republican officers. Finally, we revisit a canonical model of bureaucratic motivation and show that a treatment effect of work on preferences can alter the government’s optimal choice of selection into the profession. Our findings show how the experience of government work is central to bureaucratic preferences, and they highlight the constraints on worker selection and recruitment as tools to dictate the composition of the government workforce.

I evaluate the impact of police unions on deaths by police and occupational license decertifications. My empirical strategy exploits the staggered rollout of unionization across departments nationwide and union certification elections in Florida, where I compare winning and losing elections. I find impacts that are small and statistically insignificant, and most specifications rule out more than a 10% positive impact. These results are robust to accounting for error in union status and under-reporting of outcomes. While the evidence does suggest that unions reduce civilian oversight and increase legal protection for officers, these impacts do not translate into elevated misconduct.

I study an ongoing state-subsidized program of rebuilding and renovating Ohio’s K-12 public schools and investigate the effect of improved facility quality on student and school district outcomes. The completion of a project increases public school enrollment and district property values. Test scores do not measurably improve upon completion and suffer significant reductions during construction. The implied willingness to pay for a project is lower than total costs but greater than the cost borne by district residents. While the program led to a narrowing in expenditures across district wealth, I find little evidence that it reduced disparities in student outcomes.