Erica Owens
Biographic Data
| ID | 3887663 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Erica Owens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Erica |
| FAMILY NAME | Owens |
| SIGNATURE | OWENS E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pittsburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4519-6986 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 347 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Relative Exposure to Negative Economic Shocks, Racial Animus, and Voting
We examine how relative exposure to negative economic shocks across racial groups impacts racial animus and voting patterns. Guided by group position theory, we argue that when dominant groups experience greater economic harm than nondominant groups within the same labor markets, racial animus intensifies. In the US context, the historically central boundary between white and Black Americans provides the most meaningful test of this mechanism. Us…
Low-Skill Products by High-Skill Workers: The Distributive Effects of Trade in Emerging and Developing Countries
In developing countries, trade is increasingly associated with greater returns to high-skilled labor and rising inequality. These empirical patterns are at odds with canonical models of trade in the developing world. What does this mean for the political economy of trade in these countries? We argue that although developing countries have a comparative advantage in low-skill products, these are produced by workers that are relatively high-skilled…
Heterogeneity in How Investors Respond to Disputes: Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment and Coindustrial Disputes
Do investment disputes reduce foreign direct investment (FDI)? Investors may perceive host governments involved in arbitration as riskier. Yet a dispute may also signal new economic opportunities for firms hoping to enter the same industry as the disputant firm. These competing pressures mean the impact of disputes on FDI is ex ante unclear. However, the balance of risk and opportunity varies across industry fixed asset intensity (FAI). FAI is as…
The conditional nature of publication bias: A Meta-Regression Analysis
Publication bias is pervasive in social and behavioral sciences because journals and scholars tend to reward and be rewarded for statistically significant findings. However, the determinants of the severity of publication bias are less well understood. We argue that publication bias depends on whether an independent variable is a key variable or statistical control in traditional regression modeling. The bias should be severe only for the key var…
Consequences of an Anti‐Corruption Experiment for Local Government Performance in Brazil
Decentralization reforms, implemented to improve efficiency and service provision, pose a challenge for federal governments that would like to ensure that federal resources are used appropriately by local governments. To overcome this challenge, some federal governments have implemented costly oversight programs aimed at improving municipal governance. For instance, in 2003, the Brazilian federal government introduced a randomized auditing progra…
How do capital and labor split economic gains in an age of globalization
Recent debates about the 1% vs. 99%, CEO compensation, minimum wage, and income inequality suggest an increasingly unfavorable division of economic gains for labor. Indeed, how capital and labor divide the gains from production is central to the study of political economy, particularly the impact of globalization and unionization. Yet, the prominent measures featured in the research to date, most notably labor compensation over GDP, are inadequat…
Foreign Direct Investment and Elections: The Impact of Greenfield FDI on Incumbent Party Reelection in Brazil
Governments actively court foreign direct investment (FDI) as a tool for economic growth and development. Despite the important role of FDI in the global economy, we do not know how this activity affects election outcomes. Crucially, state and local governments are often responsible for attracting FDI. Although FDI creates jobs, it also generates competition for domestic producers. Drawing on theories of global production, I argue that inward FDI…
Why Do Democracies Attract More or Less Foreign Direct Investment? A Metaregression Analysis
A large body of research examines the relationship between democracy and foreign direct investment (FDI). Scholars offer numerous arguments about why democratic institutions encourage or discourage FDI. Yet, almost all statistical work examines whether democracies receive more or less FDI than nondemocracies. Direct evidence on the underlying theoretical mechanisms that might account for such variation remains scant. We perform a metaregression a…
Open economy politics and Brexit: Insights, puzzles, and ways forward
On 23 June 2016, a majority of 52% of British voters decided in a referendum that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. The decision sent shockwaves around Britain, Europe, and the world: the ‘Brexit’-vote presents the first instance that a country has voted to exit a major supranational institution, putting both the European integration project and the future of the United Kingdom in a globalized world into question. At the time of…
Exposure to Offshoring and the Politics of Trade Liberalization: Debate and Votes on Free Trade Agreements in the US House of Representatives, 2001–2006
The movement of jobs overseas—known as "offshoring"—is one of the most politically charged aspects of globalization in developed countries. The high salience of offshoring reflects growth in competitive pressures from globalization that directly target individuals' jobs. I argue that, in a world of fragmented production, how vulnerable one's occupation is to offshoring helps explain patterns of protectionist sentiment not otherwise accounted for …
Occupation and the Political Economy of Trade: Job Routineness, Offshorability, and Protectionist Sentiment
The recent backlash against globalization in many advanced economies raises questions about the source of this protectionist sentiment. Traditional accounts generally attribute the welfare consequences of trade to skill level or industry characteristics, or instead emphasize the nonmaterial determinants of support for openness. Consequently, we know little about how a major labor market characteristic—occupation—shapes both the distributional con…
Does Economic Globalization Influence the US Policy Mood: A Study of US Public Sentiment, 1956–2011
Does increasing economic globalization influence aggregate policy mood toward the role and size of government in the United States? Drawing on insights from international political economy scholarship, this article suggests that the impact of trade on aggregate preferences will depend on citizens’ exposure to trade. It hypothesizes that employees of import-competing, export-oriented and multinational firms will adopt a ‘compensatory’ model in whi…
The Political Power of Organized Labor and the Politics of Foreign Direct Investment in Developed Democracies
How does organized labor shape restrictions on inward foreign direct investment (FDI)? Distributional consequences, drawn from heterogeneous firms theory, suggest that although inward FDI benefits a subset of workers, a greater number of workers is hurt by inward FDI, leading labor in the aggregate to support restrictions on inward FDI. I argue that the political power of labor is determined by the position of labor vis-à-vis other actors in soci…
Unionization and Restrictions on Foreign Direct Investment
Although inward foreign direct investment (FDI) has many benefits for a country as a whole, like trade, it is a source of competition for producers in the host country, with concomitant effects on labor markets. The entrance of foreign multinationals increases demand for skilled labor at the expense of unskilled labor, and also increases the elasticity of demand for labor because multinationals are able to shift production across borders. This ra…
Islamic Religiosity and Regime Preferences: Explaining Support for Democracy and Political Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus
Does religion or religiosity affect Muslims’ regime preferences? Developing constructivist and ideational approaches, we theorize why and how religiosity shapes regime preferences. We test our hypotheses on our novel survey data from Azerbaijan in the Caucasus and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Our findings question civilizationist, rationalist, and modernizationist theories by showing that religiosity among Muslims strongly affects regime preferenc…
The Sociology of Love, Courtship, and Dating
Significant Others
Significant others are those persons who are of sufficient importance in an individual's life to affect the individual's emotions, behavior, and sense of self. While in common parlance “significant other” has come to designate a romantic partner, sociologists' broader use of the term would include other relations such as family members and close friends or mentors. Through interactions with significant others, and perceptions of their responses t…
Nonbiologic Objects as Actors
We generally understand interactions between human actors and nonbiologic objects (NBOs) as being indirect, with the human actor acting for the NBO and using the NBO as a 'thing.' Under certain circumstances, however, human actors enter into direct interaction with NBOs and take on extra work in this process. Actors must 'do mind' for the nonbiologic other to perceive 'another' with whom it is possible to interact. The fiction that mind can exist…
Difficult Children and Difficult Parents: Constructions by Child Care Providers
As more mothers of young children work, concerns about child care have gained prominence. Analyses of this topic typically address availability, safety, and costs of care, or the impact of care on children's 'outcomes.' When providers' input is included, it is generally used as an assessment tool to reinforce the researcher's conceptual framework. This study addresses the issue of nonparental child care by allowing the providers to tell their sto…
Conversational Space and Participant Shame in Interviewing
In this article, the author presents a "failed" interview that seemingly provided no usable data. The audiotape segments of participant talk were nearly inaudible and most of the interview could not be transcribed. Upon repeated readings of salvageable fragments, however, a pattern of silencing became noticeable. The author suggests that participant silence is a collaboratively produced constraint stemming from an unsuccessful subtextual negotiat…
Occupation and the Political Economy of Trade: Job Routineness, Offshorability, and Protectionist Sentiment
The recent backlash against globalization in many advanced economies raises questions about the source of this protectionist sentiment. Traditional accounts generally attribute the welfare consequences of trade to skill level or industry characteristics, or instead emphasize the nonmaterial determinants of support for openness. Consequently, we know little about how a major labor market characteristic—occupation—shapes both the distributional con…
Why Do Democracies Attract More or Less Foreign Direct Investment? A Metaregression Analysis
A large body of research examines the relationship between democracy and foreign direct investment (FDI). Scholars offer numerous arguments about why democratic institutions encourage or discourage FDI. Yet, almost all statistical work examines whether democracies receive more or less FDI than nondemocracies. Direct evidence on the underlying theoretical mechanisms that might account for such variation remains scant. We perform a metaregression a…
Exposure to Offshoring and the Politics of Trade Liberalization: Debate and Votes on Free Trade Agreements in the US House of Representatives, 2001–2006
The movement of jobs overseas—known as "offshoring"—is one of the most politically charged aspects of globalization in developed countries. The high salience of offshoring reflects growth in competitive pressures from globalization that directly target individuals' jobs. I argue that, in a world of fragmented production, how vulnerable one's occupation is to offshoring helps explain patterns of protectionist sentiment not otherwise accounted for …
Foreign Direct Investment and Elections: The Impact of Greenfield FDI on Incumbent Party Reelection in Brazil
Governments actively court foreign direct investment (FDI) as a tool for economic growth and development. Despite the important role of FDI in the global economy, we do not know how this activity affects election outcomes. Crucially, state and local governments are often responsible for attracting FDI. Although FDI creates jobs, it also generates competition for domestic producers. Drawing on theories of global production, I argue that inward FDI…
Open economy politics and Brexit: Insights, puzzles, and ways forward
On 23 June 2016, a majority of 52% of British voters decided in a referendum that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. The decision sent shockwaves around Britain, Europe, and the world: the ‘Brexit’-vote presents the first instance that a country has voted to exit a major supranational institution, putting both the European integration project and the future of the United Kingdom in a globalized world into question. At the time of…
Islamic Religiosity and Regime Preferences: Explaining Support for Democracy and Political Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus
Does religion or religiosity affect Muslims’ regime preferences? Developing constructivist and ideational approaches, we theorize why and how religiosity shapes regime preferences. We test our hypotheses on our novel survey data from Azerbaijan in the Caucasus and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Our findings question civilizationist, rationalist, and modernizationist theories by showing that religiosity among Muslims strongly affects regime preferenc…
The Political Power of Organized Labor and the Politics of Foreign Direct Investment in Developed Democracies
How does organized labor shape restrictions on inward foreign direct investment (FDI)? Distributional consequences, drawn from heterogeneous firms theory, suggest that although inward FDI benefits a subset of workers, a greater number of workers is hurt by inward FDI, leading labor in the aggregate to support restrictions on inward FDI. I argue that the political power of labor is determined by the position of labor vis-à-vis other actors in soci…
Does Economic Globalization Influence the US Policy Mood: A Study of US Public Sentiment, 1956–2011
Does increasing economic globalization influence aggregate policy mood toward the role and size of government in the United States? Drawing on insights from international political economy scholarship, this article suggests that the impact of trade on aggregate preferences will depend on citizens’ exposure to trade. It hypothesizes that employees of import-competing, export-oriented and multinational firms will adopt a ‘compensatory’ model in whi…
Conversational Space and Participant Shame in Interviewing
In this article, the author presents a "failed" interview that seemingly provided no usable data. The audiotape segments of participant talk were nearly inaudible and most of the interview could not be transcribed. Upon repeated readings of salvageable fragments, however, a pattern of silencing became noticeable. The author suggests that participant silence is a collaboratively produced constraint stemming from an unsuccessful subtextual negotiat…
Nonbiologic Objects as Actors
We generally understand interactions between human actors and nonbiologic objects (NBOs) as being indirect, with the human actor acting for the NBO and using the NBO as a 'thing.' Under certain circumstances, however, human actors enter into direct interaction with NBOs and take on extra work in this process. Actors must 'do mind' for the nonbiologic other to perceive 'another' with whom it is possible to interact. The fiction that mind can exist…
Unionization and Restrictions on Foreign Direct Investment
Although inward foreign direct investment (FDI) has many benefits for a country as a whole, like trade, it is a source of competition for producers in the host country, with concomitant effects on labor markets. The entrance of foreign multinationals increases demand for skilled labor at the expense of unskilled labor, and also increases the elasticity of demand for labor because multinationals are able to shift production across borders. This ra…
Consequences of an Anti‐Corruption Experiment for Local Government Performance in Brazil
Decentralization reforms, implemented to improve efficiency and service provision, pose a challenge for federal governments that would like to ensure that federal resources are used appropriately by local governments. To overcome this challenge, some federal governments have implemented costly oversight programs aimed at improving municipal governance. For instance, in 2003, the Brazilian federal government introduced a randomized auditing progra…
Low-Skill Products by High-Skill Workers: The Distributive Effects of Trade in Emerging and Developing Countries
In developing countries, trade is increasingly associated with greater returns to high-skilled labor and rising inequality. These empirical patterns are at odds with canonical models of trade in the developing world. What does this mean for the political economy of trade in these countries? We argue that although developing countries have a comparative advantage in low-skill products, these are produced by workers that are relatively high-skilled…
Heterogeneity in How Investors Respond to Disputes: Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment and Coindustrial Disputes
Do investment disputes reduce foreign direct investment (FDI)? Investors may perceive host governments involved in arbitration as riskier. Yet a dispute may also signal new economic opportunities for firms hoping to enter the same industry as the disputant firm. These competing pressures mean the impact of disputes on FDI is ex ante unclear. However, the balance of risk and opportunity varies across industry fixed asset intensity (FAI). FAI is as…
The conditional nature of publication bias: A Meta-Regression Analysis
Publication bias is pervasive in social and behavioral sciences because journals and scholars tend to reward and be rewarded for statistically significant findings. However, the determinants of the severity of publication bias are less well understood. We argue that publication bias depends on whether an independent variable is a key variable or statistical control in traditional regression modeling. The bias should be severe only for the key var…
How do capital and labor split economic gains in an age of globalization
Recent debates about the 1% vs. 99%, CEO compensation, minimum wage, and income inequality suggest an increasingly unfavorable division of economic gains for labor. Indeed, how capital and labor divide the gains from production is central to the study of political economy, particularly the impact of globalization and unionization. Yet, the prominent measures featured in the research to date, most notably labor compensation over GDP, are inadequat…
Conversational Space and Participant Shame in Interviewing
In this article, the author presents a "failed" interview that seemingly provided no usable data. The audiotape segments of participant talk were nearly inaudible and most of the interview could not be transcribed. Upon repeated readings of salvageable fragments, however, a pattern of silencing became noticeable. The author suggests that participant silence is a collaboratively produced constraint stemming from an unsuccessful subtextual negotiat…
The Sociology of Love, Courtship, and Dating
Significant Others
Significant others are those persons who are of sufficient importance in an individual's life to affect the individual's emotions, behavior, and sense of self. While in common parlance “significant other” has come to designate a romantic partner, sociologists' broader use of the term would include other relations such as family members and close friends or mentors. Through interactions with significant others, and perceptions of their responses t…
Nonbiologic Objects as Actors
We generally understand interactions between human actors and nonbiologic objects (NBOs) as being indirect, with the human actor acting for the NBO and using the NBO as a 'thing.' Under certain circumstances, however, human actors enter into direct interaction with NBOs and take on extra work in this process. Actors must 'do mind' for the nonbiologic other to perceive 'another' with whom it is possible to interact. The fiction that mind can exist…
Difficult Children and Difficult Parents: Constructions by Child Care Providers
As more mothers of young children work, concerns about child care have gained prominence. Analyses of this topic typically address availability, safety, and costs of care, or the impact of care on children's 'outcomes.' When providers' input is included, it is generally used as an assessment tool to reinforce the researcher's conceptual framework. This study addresses the issue of nonparental child care by allowing the providers to tell their sto…
Islamic Religiosity and Regime Preferences: Explaining Support for Democracy and Political Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus
Does religion or religiosity affect Muslims’ regime preferences? Developing constructivist and ideational approaches, we theorize why and how religiosity shapes regime preferences. We test our hypotheses on our novel survey data from Azerbaijan in the Caucasus and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Our findings question civilizationist, rationalist, and modernizationist theories by showing that religiosity among Muslims strongly affects regime preferenc…
Unionization and Restrictions on Foreign Direct Investment
Although inward foreign direct investment (FDI) has many benefits for a country as a whole, like trade, it is a source of competition for producers in the host country, with concomitant effects on labor markets. The entrance of foreign multinationals increases demand for skilled labor at the expense of unskilled labor, and also increases the elasticity of demand for labor because multinationals are able to shift production across borders. This ra…
The Political Power of Organized Labor and the Politics of Foreign Direct Investment in Developed Democracies
How does organized labor shape restrictions on inward foreign direct investment (FDI)? Distributional consequences, drawn from heterogeneous firms theory, suggest that although inward FDI benefits a subset of workers, a greater number of workers is hurt by inward FDI, leading labor in the aggregate to support restrictions on inward FDI. I argue that the political power of labor is determined by the position of labor vis-à-vis other actors in soci…
Does Economic Globalization Influence the US Policy Mood: A Study of US Public Sentiment, 1956–2011
Does increasing economic globalization influence aggregate policy mood toward the role and size of government in the United States? Drawing on insights from international political economy scholarship, this article suggests that the impact of trade on aggregate preferences will depend on citizens’ exposure to trade. It hypothesizes that employees of import-competing, export-oriented and multinational firms will adopt a ‘compensatory’ model in whi…
Open economy politics and Brexit: Insights, puzzles, and ways forward
On 23 June 2016, a majority of 52% of British voters decided in a referendum that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. The decision sent shockwaves around Britain, Europe, and the world: the ‘Brexit’-vote presents the first instance that a country has voted to exit a major supranational institution, putting both the European integration project and the future of the United Kingdom in a globalized world into question. At the time of…
Exposure to Offshoring and the Politics of Trade Liberalization: Debate and Votes on Free Trade Agreements in the US House of Representatives, 2001–2006
The movement of jobs overseas—known as "offshoring"—is one of the most politically charged aspects of globalization in developed countries. The high salience of offshoring reflects growth in competitive pressures from globalization that directly target individuals' jobs. I argue that, in a world of fragmented production, how vulnerable one's occupation is to offshoring helps explain patterns of protectionist sentiment not otherwise accounted for …
Occupation and the Political Economy of Trade: Job Routineness, Offshorability, and Protectionist Sentiment
The recent backlash against globalization in many advanced economies raises questions about the source of this protectionist sentiment. Traditional accounts generally attribute the welfare consequences of trade to skill level or industry characteristics, or instead emphasize the nonmaterial determinants of support for openness. Consequently, we know little about how a major labor market characteristic—occupation—shapes both the distributional con…
Why Do Democracies Attract More or Less Foreign Direct Investment? A Metaregression Analysis
A large body of research examines the relationship between democracy and foreign direct investment (FDI). Scholars offer numerous arguments about why democratic institutions encourage or discourage FDI. Yet, almost all statistical work examines whether democracies receive more or less FDI than nondemocracies. Direct evidence on the underlying theoretical mechanisms that might account for such variation remains scant. We perform a metaregression a…
How do capital and labor split economic gains in an age of globalization
Recent debates about the 1% vs. 99%, CEO compensation, minimum wage, and income inequality suggest an increasingly unfavorable division of economic gains for labor. Indeed, how capital and labor divide the gains from production is central to the study of political economy, particularly the impact of globalization and unionization. Yet, the prominent measures featured in the research to date, most notably labor compensation over GDP, are inadequat…
Foreign Direct Investment and Elections: The Impact of Greenfield FDI on Incumbent Party Reelection in Brazil
Governments actively court foreign direct investment (FDI) as a tool for economic growth and development. Despite the important role of FDI in the global economy, we do not know how this activity affects election outcomes. Crucially, state and local governments are often responsible for attracting FDI. Although FDI creates jobs, it also generates competition for domestic producers. Drawing on theories of global production, I argue that inward FDI…
Consequences of an Anti‐Corruption Experiment for Local Government Performance in Brazil
Decentralization reforms, implemented to improve efficiency and service provision, pose a challenge for federal governments that would like to ensure that federal resources are used appropriately by local governments. To overcome this challenge, some federal governments have implemented costly oversight programs aimed at improving municipal governance. For instance, in 2003, the Brazilian federal government introduced a randomized auditing progra…
Heterogeneity in How Investors Respond to Disputes: Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment and Coindustrial Disputes
Do investment disputes reduce foreign direct investment (FDI)? Investors may perceive host governments involved in arbitration as riskier. Yet a dispute may also signal new economic opportunities for firms hoping to enter the same industry as the disputant firm. These competing pressures mean the impact of disputes on FDI is ex ante unclear. However, the balance of risk and opportunity varies across industry fixed asset intensity (FAI). FAI is as…
The conditional nature of publication bias: A Meta-Regression Analysis
Publication bias is pervasive in social and behavioral sciences because journals and scholars tend to reward and be rewarded for statistically significant findings. However, the determinants of the severity of publication bias are less well understood. We argue that publication bias depends on whether an independent variable is a key variable or statistical control in traditional regression modeling. The bias should be severe only for the key var…
Low-Skill Products by High-Skill Workers: The Distributive Effects of Trade in Emerging and Developing Countries
In developing countries, trade is increasingly associated with greater returns to high-skilled labor and rising inequality. These empirical patterns are at odds with canonical models of trade in the developing world. What does this mean for the political economy of trade in these countries? We argue that although developing countries have a comparative advantage in low-skill products, these are produced by workers that are relatively high-skilled…
Relative Exposure to Negative Economic Shocks, Racial Animus, and Voting
We examine how relative exposure to negative economic shocks across racial groups impacts racial animus and voting patterns. Guided by group position theory, we argue that when dominant groups experience greater economic harm than nondominant groups within the same labor markets, racial animus intensifies. In the US context, the historically central boundary between white and Black Americans provides the most meaningful test of this mechanism. Us…
Economics (15 works) · Political science (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · International economics (8 works) · Market economy (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Foreign direct investment (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works)