Sarah Robinson

Assistant Professor of Economics

Claremont McKenna College

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I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at Claremont McKenna College. My research interests are in health economics and public economics.

  sarah.robinson@claremontmckenna.edu
  CV
  @RobinsonSarah_

Peer-Reviewed Publications

“One Hundred Years of U.S. State Taxation” with Alisa Tazhitdinova, Journal of Public Economics, January 2025

⛁  Data

Publisher’s Link

“Geographic Variation in Cesarean Sections in the United States: Trends, Correlates, and Other Interesting Facts” with Heather Royer and David Silver, Journal of Labor Economics, April 2024

☆  Featured in: NBER Bulletin on Health

Publisher’s Link — NBER Working Paper 31871

“Corporate Political Spending and State Tax Policy: Evidence from Citizens United    ” with Cailin Slattery and Alisa Tazhitdinova, Journal of Public Economics, May 2023

☆  Featured in: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, CATO Insitute

Publisher’s Link — NBER Working Paper 30352

Working Papers

“Do Firms Avoid Health Insurance Mandates? Evidence from the Self-Funding of Employer Plans”

(Job Market Paper)

I analyze the extent to which firms self-fund their health insurance plans to avoid complying with state regulations. I focus on requirements to cover costly procedures or providers, and study their impact on smaller firms, who are most exposed to these mandates. Using administrative data on health plans and a difference-in-differences design, I find that mandates substantially increase the likelihood of self-funding. This increase is concentrated among firms not reporting any stop-loss insurance and among industries with higher average premiums. As a placebo test, I estimate a precise null effect among larger firms who are less exposed to these mandates.

“Do Taxes Affect Pre-Tax Income Inequality? Evidence from 100 Years of U.S. State Policies” with Matías Strehl-Pessina and Alisa Tazhitdinova

We study how U.S. state personal and corporate income taxes have affected pre-tax income inequality (income shares and top incomes) during the last century. The long panel nature of our data, from 1917 to 2018, allows us to study the effect of tax adoptions, tax cancellations, and tax changes, and to assess both immediate and long-term relationships. With event study, synthetic control, and heterogeneity-robust two-way fixed effects designs, we generally find no statistically significant or economically significant relationship between tax measures and inequality.

“Are U.S. State Tax Policies Increasingly Polarized?” with Alisa Tazhitdinova

We study the extent to which political polarization permeates U.S. state tax policies from 1910 to 2022. We document an increase in tax policy polarization in recent decades, particularly for personal income, corporate income, and cigarette taxes, but convergence in sales taxes. However, along the intensive and extensive margins of tax policy, the current levels of polarization are not unique relative to the past. Furthermore, this polarization is only pronounced among states with large political majorities and stable political regimes. Yet state tax policies are not gridlocked: swing states change taxes as frequently as, and with similar magnitude to, deep red and blue states.

“What Drives Tax Policy? Political, Institutional and Economic Determinants of State Tax Policy” with Alisa Tazhitdinova

NBER Working Paper 31268

We examine the determinants of U.S. state tax policy using a comprehensive panel dataset on personal income, corporate income, sales, cigarette, gasoline, and alcohol tax rates spanning the past 70 years. Applying Shapley decomposition and machine learning methods, we find that commonly cited factors — such as economic conditions, political partisanship, institutional features, demographic trends, and tax competition among neighboring states — explain less than 20% of the observed variation in the timing and magnitude of tax changes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that state tax policies cannot be reliably classified into stable or interpretable categories over time. These findings suggest that state tax policies exhibit a high degree of idiosyncrasy and resist simple, systematic explanation.

Work in Progress

“Employer Choice of Health Insurance Plans and Premium Sharing” (approved FSRDC project)

Resources

Teaching Materials for UCSB ECON PhD Math Camp

Other Resources