
Brian Wheaton
- Cultural Economics
- Macroeconomics
- Political Economy
- Public Economics
Biography
Brian Wheaton’s research encompasses political economy, cultural economics and macroeconomics. He analyzes empirical data in order to answer policy-relevant, real-world political and economic questions. His work on political economy and cultural economics focuses on the important role culture plays in shaping material economic and political outcomes. His work on macroeconomics examines how various forms of government intervention and regulation shape the macroeconomy.
Wheaton’s most recent work focuses on the effects of laws on beliefs held by the public. He modeled his study using a dynamic difference-in-differences identification strategy, and his findings indicate that virtually every major U.S. social policy law — both liberal and conservative — of the past half-century has induced significant backlash. “Individuals move in the opposite direction of the law in an attempt to preserve the values that are important to them and are placed under threat by the law,” Wheaton says. “For instance, the state Equal Rights Amendments of the 1970s aimed to legislate gender equality. But I find robust evidence that ERA passage leads to a sharp backlash, particularly among men, who exhibit sharply more negative attitudes toward male/female equality. I also find that backlash is passed on to the next generation and it endures more strongly in ideologically homogeneous communities.”
Some of Wheaton’s other projects explore the effects of school corporal punishment on long-run cultural and economic outcomes, the role of motivated reasoning in political polarization and how it can be minimized, the macroeconomic effects of the Eastern European flat-tax reforms, and the implications of the minimum wage for monetary policy efficacy.
In 2021, Wheaton was a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He formally joined the UCLA Anderson School of Management faculty as an assistant professor in 2022.
Education
Ph.D. Political Economy and Government, 2021, Harvard University
M.A. Political Economy and Government, 2018, Harvard University
B.A. Economics (Highest Honors), 2013, University of California, Berkeley
A.A. Liberal Arts, 2011, College of Marin
Publications
Taxes, Incorporation, and Productivity (with Robert Barro), Tax Policy and the Economy, Vol. 34 (2022)
Working Papers
Political Economy
Laws, Beliefs, and Backlash
Current Version: June 2022
External Threat, Polarization, and Legislative Efficacy: Evidence from the Cold War
Current Version: June 2022
Erroneous Beliefs and Political Approval: Evidence from the Coronavirus Pandemic (with Matthew Lilley)
Current Version: June 2021
Secularization and the Tribulations of the American Working-Class
Current Version: August 2021
Macroeconomics/ Labor Economics
Hidden Inflation in Supply Chains: Theory and Evidence (with Robert Minton)
Current Version: November 2022
Minimum Wages and Internal Migration (with Robert Minton)
Current Version: September 2022
The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Progressivity: Evidence from the Eastern European Flat Tax Reforms
Current Version: August 2022
Minimum Wages and the Rigid-Wage Channel of Monetary Policy (with Robert Minton)
Current Version: June 2022
Work in Progress
Are Preconceptions Postconceptions? Evidence on Motivated Political Reasoning (with Matthew Lilley)
Slides
The Long-Run Effects of Corporal Punishment in Schools (with Maria Petrova and Gautam Rao)
Slides
Difference-in-Differences with Spillovers: The Effects of Minimum Wage Increases on Prices in Other States (with Robert Minton)
Slides