2004 University of Michigan Poverty Research Grants
Funded research
Justin McCrary, Assistant Professor, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Department of Economics, University of Michigan.
The Long-Run Economic Consequences of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot.
Description
This study will evaluate the long-run impact of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot on the economic health of the city, with a particular focus on the neighborhoods most affected by rioting.
The unit of analysis is the census tract; the 1990 Census, taken shortly before the riot, is viewed as the baseline survey, and the 2000 Census as the follow-up survey. Measurement of the riot's impact within the City of Los Angeles will be taken from the Department of Building and Safety's "1992 Civil Disorder Damage Survey."
To estimate the riot's impact, I will compare riot-damaged tracts in Los Angeles to ex ante similar tracts in other cities, where "similar" means that the predicted propensity to riot is similar. The key outcomes studied will be tract population, median income, and fraction employed.
In general, a comparison of outcomes in rioting tracts with those of tracts which are ex ante dissimilar does not identify the effect of the riots alone, but a complicated mixture of the effect of the riots and differences in confounders. Conditioning on the predicted riot propensity will in the typical case balance covariates included in the prediction equation for riot. Balancing measurable confounders is clearly a desirable property for an estimator; however, matching on the predicted riot propensity is most compelling if it balances confounders not included in the prediction equation.
This is a point which is not usually stressed in the literature on propensity matching. In an attempt to gauge the extent to which we may place our faith in the estimates furnished by the proposed study, I will examine the ability of simple propensity score matching like that outlined to match ex ante observable characteristics not included in the estimation of the propensity score.
Gutman, Friedel | Mallon | McCrary | Index
