Political Impact of US Trade Unions

Applicant's homepage: https://barbmandel.huji.ac.il/people/matan-kolerman

I apply the novel RD Aggregation method to asses the political impact of US trade unions. The method allows the aggregation of several discontinuity events–close unionization elections–into a commuting zone level shock that measures the unions’ ”Luck” in each zone in each period. Using this methodology, I find that, on average, a newly unionized worker is worth 1.5 new votes for the Democratic party candidate in the following presidential elections and that unions shift local congressmen to the left. Further analysis suggests that the significant effects partly stem from increased campaign contributions, strategic
political resource allocation by unions in areas with new members, and direct impact on union members.