"The Impact of United States Assimilation and Allotment Policy on American Indian Mortality" (with Grant Miller and C. Matthew Snipp)
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Abstract: In contrast to earlier US policies of open war, forcible removal, and relocation to address the “Indian Problem,” the Dawes Act of 1887 focused on assimilation and land severalty—making American Indians citizens of the United States with individually titled plots of land rather than members of collective tribes with communal land. Considerable scholarship shows that the consequences of the policy differed substantially from its stated goals, and by the time of its repeal in 1934, American Indians had lost two-thirds of all native land held in 1887 (86 million acres)—and nearly two-thirds of American Indians had become landless or unable to meet subsistence needs. Complementing rich qualitative history, this paper provides quantitative evidence on the demographic impact of the Dawes Act on mortality among American Indian children and adults. Using 1900 and 1910 US population census data to study both household and tribe-level variation in allotment timing, we find that assimilation and allotment policy increased the American Indian child mortality ratio by a little more than 15%. In secondary analyses (requiring additional assumptions) focused on total mortality, we find increases among young American Indians of nearly one-third (implying a decline in life expectancy at birth of about 20%). These results confirm contemporary critics’ adamant concerns about the Dawes Act.
"Productivity Gains and Work Conditions in Coercive Labor Markets: Experimental Evidence from the Bangladesh Brick Sector" (with Grant Miller, Kim Babiarz, Debashish Biswas, Nina Brooks, Jessie Brunner, Sania Ashraf, Aprajit Mahajan, Alvise Scarabosio, Sameer Maithel, Shoeb Ahmed, Moogdho Mazab, M. Rofi Uddin, Mahbubur Rahman, Stephen P. Luby)
Revise and Resubmit at Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences
Abstract: Productivity growth is central to theories of economic development and can improve worker welfare through higher wages or better conditions. While this may hold in competitive labor markets, it is unclear if productivity gains benefit workers in coercive labor markets, where force or threats shape employment. We examine this issue in the Bangladesh brick sector using a randomized trial that introduced a more efficient production method. Despite large productivity improvements, we find no reduction in (high) rates of labor trafficking or child labor. These findings suggest that productivity growth alone may be insufficient to improve work conditions in coercive settings.
"On Tubes; Or, Model-Building From Rich Data By Isolating Concepts" (with Arun Chandrasekhar, Matthew Jackson, Tyler McCormick, Karl Rohe, and Brian Xu)
Draft coming soon