Subject Area

Economics

Abstract

This dissertation contributes to empirical economics research by examining three settings in which historical shocks, behavioral constraints, and localized public events affect social relations, decision quality, and public safety. The first chapter examines the persistence of historical religious conflict in contemporary Hindu–Muslim relations in India. The second chapter studies how time pressure affects decision quality in online chess. The third chapter analyzes the localized traffic-safety externalities of NFL game days. Across these settings, the dissertation uses large-scale data and quasi-experimental research designs to distinguish causal effects from selection, spatial concentration, and persistent local conditions.

The first chapter asks whether historical institutional destruction can create enduring social divisions that persist across centuries. I examine this question by studying the long-run impacts of Hindu temple destruction during medieval Islamic campaigns in India from the 11th to 16th centuries. Using proximity to reconstructed least-cost paths of Alauddin Khalji's southern military campaigns between 1296 and 1311 as an instrumental variable, I find that districts exposed to temple destruction experience 225 percent more Hindu–Muslim communal violence during 1950–1995. Even under the conservative Nevo–Rosen lower bound that relaxes strict exogeneity assumptions, the effect remains large at 142 percent, and near-miss tests comparing districts close to campaign routes but without temple destruction show no elevated violence. Falsification tests confirm that this effect is specific to religious violence, as temple destruction shows no impact on non-communal violence. The persistence operates through lasting social fragmentation: affected districts exhibit higher employment and residential segregation between Hindu and Muslim communities and greater spatial separation of religious institutions. These findings reveal how destruction of sacred institutions can generate geographically anchored grievances that become embedded in local social structures across centuries.

The second chapter estimates how time pressure degrades decision quality. Credible estimates of this relationship are scarce because time constraints are difficult to vary experimentally in professional settings, and individuals self-select into time-pressured environments based on their aptitude for fast decisions. I exploit the fact that online chess players routinely compete under sharply different time controls: Bullet, under 3 minutes; Blitz, 3–8 minutes; and Rapid, 8–25 minutes. Using player fixed effects on 23.7 million moves from 113,041 players on the Lichess platform, I estimate within-person time-pressure penalties. Engine loss is an error measure where higher values indicate worse moves. Reducing available time from Rapid to Bullet increases the same player's engine loss by 0.57 pawn units per move, a 30 percent increase relative to the Rapid mean of 1.87. The penalty varies with expertise: players in low-rated bins lose nearly twice as much as those in high-rated bins, though even top players suffer significant degradation. Within-player estimates exceed cross-sectional estimates by 36–115 percent, consistent with positive selection on speed-related ability. More broadly, in settings where people sort into time-pressured roles partly on the basis of speed-related aptitude, naïve cross-sectional comparisons may understate the cost of speed.

The third chapter examines the causal impact of major sporting events on traffic accidents. Major sporting events are known to elevate alcohol consumption and traffic congestion, but credible estimates of their localized accident externalities remain limited. Using the quasi-random timing of National Football League game schedules and an extensive accident dataset spanning from 2017 to 2022, I exploit within-region variation over time and across distance rings from stadiums to estimate the effect of game days on accident rates. The main results indicate a 15.6 percent increase in traffic accidents within a 0–5 mile radius of stadiums on home game days. This effect is largely driven by increases in accidents in the hours immediately preceding and following games. I find no significant changes in accident rates at the county level or in wider distance ranges from stadiums, indicating that the accident externality is highly localized around the stadium area.

Together, these three chapters examine how historical institutions, behavioral constraints, and public events shape economic and social outcomes across different contexts. Chapter 1 shows how historical religious conflict can persist through local social fragmentation. Chapter 2 demonstrates that time pressure reduces decision quality even among experienced decision-makers, while selection into fast environments masks part of this cost. Chapter 3 shows that NFL game days generate localized accident externalities near stadiums, concentrated around the periods before and after games. Taken together, the dissertation highlights how forces rooted in history, cognition, and place can shape social relations, individual performance, and public safety.

Degree Date

Summer 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Economics

Advisor

Daniel L. Millimet

Second Advisor

Nathaniel Pattison

Third Advisor

Omer Ozak

Fourth Advisor

Wenhua Di

Acknowledgements

My deepest thanks go to my advisor, Dr. Daniel Millimet, whose econometric depth and patient mentorship shaped this dissertation and my development as an applied microeconomist. I am equally indebted to Dr. Nathaniel Pattison, whose detailed engagement with every chapter and rigorous scrutiny of every identification choice substantially improved this dissertation and shaped my approach to applied research. I also thank Dr. Omer Ozak for his guidance on the methodology of the first two essays, and Dr. Wenhua Di for thoughtful feedback as my external committee member. I am grateful to the faculty and graduate students of the SMU Department of Economics for their feedback in workshops and seminars, and gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Provost's Doctoral Fellowship.

Number of Pages

109

Format

.pdf

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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