Jeronimo Cortina

The outbreak of political scandal depresses the approval ratings of the individuals involved, especially the president.  Yet, less is known about the partisan effects of approval ratings during scandal, especially the “stickiness” of partisan ties to leaders involved in scandal.  Using a survey experiment, we expose respondents to manufactured news coverage of both illegal and not illegal (mismanaged policy) activities involving President Obama.  The results demonstrate that the President’s co-partisans are more likely to approve of the President and less likely to desire to impeach the president, even after being informed about illegal activity.  In contrast, out partisans are more likely to demand the President’s impeachment for both illegal and not illegal activity.  This article provides evidence of how partisanship persists (and even expands) during presidential scandals and how partisan linkages are important to surviving scandal.

Residential location has been shown to significantly impact mental health, with individuals in rural communities experiencing poorer mental health compared to those in urban areas. However, the influence of an individual’s social group on the relationship between residential location and mental health outcomes remains unclear. This study disaggregates the rural-urban binary and investigates how geography and social groupings interact to shape mental health outcomes. Merging data from PLACES and Claritas PRIZM, we conducted a hotspot analysis, generated bivariate choropleth maps, and applied multiscale geographically weighted regressions to examine the spatial distribution of mental health and social groupings. Our findings reveal that mental health is influenced by complex interactions, with social groups playing a critical role. Our study highlights that not all rural and urban areas are alike, and the extent to which social groups influence mental health outcomes varies within and...

The wall along the U.S.–Mexico border has become one of the most controversial issues in the immigration debate. Although the American public is often aligned with partisan predispositions, often ignored is the role that geographic distance to the border plays in forming attitudes. This paper explores the role of proximity, partisanship, and their interaction as determinants of public attitudes toward the border wall. This paper argues that geographic distance has two effects on public attitudes: as a catalyst for direct contact and as a dynamic filter that shapes how people process information and understand a particular place or policy. Using geocoded survey data from 2017, this paper shows that as the distance to the U.S.–Mexico border increases, Republicans are more likely to support building a wall along the entire border with Mexico due to a lack of direct contact, supplanting direct information with partisan beliefs.

This paper investigates some of the potential consequences of the impact of the financial crisis on international migrants' families back home. Using Mexico's 2006 and 2008 Encuesta Nacional de Ingreso y Gasto de los Hogares (ENIGH), a national representative survey of more ...

Conventional wisdom argues that the relationship between migration and remittances is positive and reinforcing. The basic idea is that as the number of migrants in a host country in period one grows, the level of remittances sent to the home country will increase in period two, ...

Abstract: Social scientists become experts in their own disciplines but aren't always familiar with what is going on in neighboring fields. To foster a deeper understanding of the interconnection of the social sciences, economists should know where historical data come from, ...