There is growing concern over rising social divisions in the U.S. We develop a new method to endogenously partition society into groups based on homophily in values. The between-group differentiation that results from this partition provides a novel measure of latent polarization in society. For the last forty years, the degree of latent polarization of the U.S. public has been high and relatively stable. In contrast, the degree of partisan polarization between voters of the two main political parties steadily increased since the 1990s and is now converging toward that of underlying values-based clusters. Growing partisan polarization in the U.S. is a reflection of partisan views becoming increasingly aligned with the main values-based clusters in society.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Klaus Desmet is the Altshuler Professor of Cities, Regions and Globalization at Southern Methodist University, Research Fellow at CEPR, and Research Associate at NBER. He holds an MSc in Business and Engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain and a PhD in Economics from Stanford University. Before moving to SMU, he was Professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. His research focuses on regional economics, climate change, and political economy. His work has appeared in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Economic Theory, and the Journal of Development Economics. In 2019, he was the recipient of the Robert E. Lucas Jr. Prize, and in 2010, he was awarded the August Lösch Prize.

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