Comparing Barbershop Inspection Outcomes in Alabama and Mississippi
IJ obtained inspection data from the boards responsible for licensing barbers in Alabama and Mississippi. The full dataset for Alabama and Mississippi includes 3,218 inspections across 1,748 firms for the years 2014 through 2018. Figure 7 illustrates the geographic location of inspections. As in Figure 6, the dots’ color represents the distance to the border between the states, with inspections of businesses closer to the border receiving greater weight. During the years analyzed, licensure was required in both Alabama and Mississippi, but the amount of schooling hours required to obtain licensure was 50% higher in Mississippi.
Figure 7. Locations of Alabama and Mississippi Barbershop Inspections
The analysis weights barbershops closer to the border more heavily, as they, and the locations in which they operate, are assumed to be more similar
I followed a similar analytical process for the comparisons of barbershop inspection outcomes in Alabama and Mississippi as for the comparisons of nail salon inspection outcomes in Connecticut and New York. That is, I started with descriptive comparisons of barbershop inspections throughout the whole of each state and then restricted to barbershops within the bandwidth around the border, before conducting a regression discontinuity analysis and performing tests to evaluate the design. There were some minor differences, however. For example, there was only one outcome variable, and it was binary (inspections passed or failed).
For full details of my methods, see Appendix A, and for full details of my results, see Appendix B.