Chika O. Okafor | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Prosecutor Politics: The Impact of Election Cycles on Criminal Sentencing in the Era of Rising Incarceration

Exploiting variation in the timing of district attorney elections across nearly 40 states during the steepest rise in U.S. incarceration (roughly 1986-2006), this paper shows that election years increased per capita admissions and months sentenced to state prisons, with admissions rising 3 percent--approximately 63,000 additional prison admissions over the period. These effects were concentrated in the South, stronger in Republican counties, and declined as public opinion softened, largely disappearing after the era ended. Results suggest sentencing outcomes respond to voter preferences, implying that the politics underlying rising incarceration may be as important to understand as the policies themselves.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2026

Seeing Through Color Blindness: Social Networks as a Mechanism for Discrimination

I study labor markets in which firms both hire via referrals and are race blind or color-blind. I develop an employment model showing that despite initial equality in ability, employment, wages, and network structure, minorities receive disproportionately fewer jobs through referrals and lower expected wages, simply because their social group is smaller. This discriminatory outcome, which I term "social network discrimination," arises from homophily and falls outside the dominant economics discrimination models, which are taste based and statistical. I calibrate the model using a nationally representative sample of youth networks to estimate the lower bound welfare gap caused by social network discrimination, which also disadvantages black workers. This paper isolates a potential underlying mechanism for inequality, adding to the understanding of labor-market disparities that have been widely studied across the social sciences. In doing so, the paper disproves the proposition that color-blind policies inherently promote individual merit.

econ.GN↗