This paper examines the relationship between marijuana policy changes, arrest trends, and racial disparities in arrests in two major U.S. cities, Indianapolis and Chicago, between 2014 and 2023. Chicago implemented statewide legalization in January 2020, while Indianapolis decriminalized certain marijuana offenses at the county level in September 2019. By analyzing public arrest data from Chicago and the State of Indiana, this research addresses three key questions: whether marijuana-related arrests declined after these policy changes, how racial disparities in arrests changed after these shifts, and how marijuana arrest trends compare with those for other drugs. Our findings reveal significant reductions in marijuana-related arrests in both cities following policy reforms, though the degree of change varied. The results also demonstrate stark racial disparities in marijuana arrest rates both prior to and following policy changes in each city, though racial disparities decreased in both Chicago and Indianapolis following each policy change during the study period. Ultimately, racial disparities in both cities increased again as time after reform passed, signaling the need for policies and practices that sustain decreases in disparities overtime.

I investigate the effects of the race of the perceived beneficiaries of an affordable housing development on white homeowners’ support for the project, using an online survey experiment with 520 participants. I find that priming respondents to believe a nearby proposed project’s residents will likely be Black significantly increases opposition compared to the white prime. However, the effect is moderated by respondents’ racial attitudes, such that self-reported racially sensitive individuals instead become more supportive when led to believe a project’s residents will be Black. Despite racial cues increasing opposition, respondents do not express different concerns with development in a racialized context. These results suggest that race is a central factor driving attitudes toward affordable housing; however, racially motivated public commenters mask their concerns behind those ostensibly unrelated to race. Policymakers concerned with advancing equity while addressing the housing crisis may reconsider public comment’s role informing them of the public’s preferences toward development.

On October 29, 2012, a cyclone and a tropical storm fused under an inauspicious full moon off the Atlantic Northwest of the US to create Hurricane Sandy. It beelined toward the New York City metropolitan area at high tide and became the most destructive and costly hurricane in the City’s history; costing NYC $19 billion in in damages, 43 deaths and the absence of electricity and heat for around two million people. While the impacts were widespread, the neighborhoods of Coney Island and the Rockaways experienced widely disparate impacts which magnified the underlying social vulnerabilities among low-income racialized and ethicized populations. This paper positions Hurricane Sandy as a locus of interrogation to question how discriminatory policies excised low-income and socially vulnerable populations to the environmentally vulnerable lands of Coney Island and the Rockaways at the time of Sandy, and what injustices preceded the event and were engendered as a result. To answer these questions, this paper will examine the sequence of displacement and place-making over time that created channels for populations with existing social vulnerabilities to be thrust into environmentally risky coastal areas in New York City. Ultimately, the process, which I name coastal corralling, created the conditions for the little-discussed post-storm disaster and environmental injustices in Coney Island and the Rockaways, producing chronic issues that continue to persist over a decade after the storm.

Contrary to the long-held logic that giving Guam a stronger, more autonomous voice will undermine U.S. strategic interests, failing to provide Guam with a stable pathway of interest advancement beyond Congress hinders its development and with it the federal government’s ability to achieve soft-power advantages and basic military readiness in the Indo-Pacific theater. 

Since the United States assumed responsibility for administering the territory of Guam in 1898, it has treated the prospect of Guam’s status improvement as detrimental to U.S. strategic interests. This has informed its chosen method of territorial administration, which places U.S. territories under the authority of the Department of the Interior. Each territory is then given only one formal representative in Congress, specifically the U.S. House of Representatives, but without full-voting rights. This paper will explore how Guam has managed to advance its interests in Washington since 1972, highlighting how congressional representation has become Guam’s most successful pathway of interest advancement with the federal government to date. However, the agency and success of Guam’s congressional delegates must be framed within a broader discussion of the fragility of the U.S. approach to territorial administration, which has relegated Guam to a pathway of interest advancement incredibly vulnerable to political sea change. Ultimately, this paper will illustrate how Guam’s main pathway of interest advancement in Washington is quickly narrowing at the expense of U.S. strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific.

In the early 2000s, the European Union (EU) created multiple standards on agricultural imports. This paper focuses on the effect of stricter maximum residue limits (MRLs) for pesticides on citrus fruit exports to the EU after the limits went into effect in 2005. Using a regression model on overall citrus fruit exports and an interaction term for country-level income, the data shows that the EU’s stricter MRLs hurt exports from high-income, lower-middle-income, and low-income countries. Exports from low-income countries declined the most after 2005, while only upper-middle-income countries saw an increase in exports. For product-specific models, low-income countries saw a reduction in exports to the EU for all citrus fruits, while results varied by fruit for other income classifications. The results of these models demonstrate that the EU’s tightened pesticide regulation hurt low-income countries the most. While the regulation is meant to maintain a standard of food quality in the EU, its impact on low-income countries raises important questions about the unintended effects of import regulations. The EU could maintain its quality of food while alleviating the burden on low-income countries by relaxing its MRL standards or by providing more assistance to developing nations to meet its standards. 

Organ transplantation has become a widespread medical practice with public policy designed to increase rates of deceased donation. When individuals have not registered as organ donors, next-of-kin are called on to make donation decisions—requiring families to grapple with the often-confusing concept of ‘brain death’ and parse their understanding of what the deceased would have wanted. Current public policy is explicitly designed to promote high donation rates without clear regard to the experiences of donor-families; at best, these policies prime donation conversations to involve unethical practices, while at worst, the disregard of kin’s experiences may also diminish deceased donation rates. Anthropological literature has documented the often aggressive tactics used by transplant organizations that demonstrate a disregard for the emotional experiences of kin. In 2023, Congress passed the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act, prompting the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reevaluate organ donation policies and solicit requests for proposal for a new federal contractor to take over the network responsible for overseeing all organ sharing. This article leverages the relevant anthropological literature to provide guiding principles and proposed language amending the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Interpretive Guidance that HHS could implement as part of its modernization initiative. These principles aim to improve experiences for kin without lowering donation rates. The article recommends that HHS and its contractors collect metrics to measure the quality of Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) interactions, counterbalancing current benchmarks focused on procurement rates. It also recommends improved protocols to empathically and systematically support kin’s understanding of brain death. 

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Congress transferred nearly $1 trillion USD to state and local governments between April 2020 and March 2021 to support vaccination efforts, keep schools open, and sustain economic recovery. As of March 2023, much of this money remained unspent, raising questions about the underlying process of determining the size and distribution of aid. This paper explores how Google search data and machine learning models can work in real-time to assist policy makers in evaluating fiscal policy proposals. These results are among the first pieces of evidence that economic models can feasibly integrate alternative sources of data to provide real-time estimates of economic activity at the state level. The author’s models provide reliable and accurate estimates of state and local fiscal need and indicate the states that need relief the most months ahead of official estimates. The more tailored models presented in this paper could lead to more equitable and effective outcomes at a fraction of the cost to taxpayers when used to inform emergency fiscal stimulus distribution in the future.

The Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2010 created a federal program to advance community living for people with disabilities. This program’s enactment followed the Supreme Court’s 1999 ruling in Olmstead v. L.C. which categorized unnecessary institutionalization and segregated living of people with disabilities as discriminatory. In the intervening years, amid the continued fallout of the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and an ever-challenged affordable housing stock, it is prudent to evaluate the Melville Act’s effectiveness in achieving its goals from a national and programmatic perspective. 

As Puerto Rico emerges from bankruptcy after completing the largest public debt restructuring in U.S. history, it must revitalize economic growth to mitigate future debt situations. To achieve economic competitiveness, it should address the challenges facing its energy sector, including high costs, unreliable access, and unsustainable operations. Puerto Rico’s recent solar-focused renewable energy transition presents a unique opportunity for the island to attain affordable and reliable energy. However, the transition will likely face economic and policy barriers surrounding pricing, equity, governance, and financing. The policy recommendations discussed in this paper aim to mitigate these barriers and ensure that Puerto Rico’s renewable energy transition is economically sustainable and socially equitable.