Chandler Case, Christopher Eddy, Rahul Hemrajani, Christopher Howell, Daniel Lyons, Yu-Hsien Sung, and Elizabeth C. Connors: The health and economic outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic are largely dependent on individual behavior—behavior that can potentially be shaped by the information environment. The pandemic thus highlights the importance of communication: how individuals interpret recommendations from experts matters, … Read more
Jan Sauermann What is the will of the people? What is the meaning of democratic decisions? Social choice theory – the study of the aggregation of individual preferences into a collective choice – seeks answers to such fundamental questions. In the late 18th century, the Marquis de Condorcet applied social choice theory to describe a … Read more
Evan Lieberman and Yang-Yang Zhou Many deeply rooted economic and political factors contribute to the persistence of extreme inequalities around the world. Across the low- and middle-income countries, policies designed to promote human welfare often fail to translate into better development outcomes. For example, following the extension of universal free primary education across several East … Read more
Sam Whitt, Alixandra B. Yanus, Brian McDonald, John Graeber, Mark Setzler, Gordon Ballingrud, and Martin Kifer Over the past two decades, researchers have turned to behavioral experiments to examine “other regarding preferences” across varying social identity treatments (Fershtman and Gneezy 2001; Jacquemet and l’Haridon. 2018; Bardsley et al 2020). Increasingly, scholars have also found utility … Read more
Philip Moniz Though the coronavirus pandemic has killed over 500,000 people in the United States and 2.5 million worldwide, some people take it more seriously than others. Some perceive the death toll as an outrage and a failure of government leadership; others regard the toll as unfortunate but unavoidable; still others see it as tolerable, … Read more
Geoffrey Henderson and Hahrie Han A decade on from the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the American campaign finance system remains deeply undemocratic. Fewer than one in four campaign dollars in the 2020 election came from people giving $200 or less, allowing wealthy Americans disproportionate influence over the outcome. Seattle, Washington’s innovative … Read more
Nicholas Haas, Aida Gureghian, Cristel Jusino Díaz, and Abby Williams Has COVID-19 made doctoral students more receptive to non-academic careers? Economic fallout from the pandemic has exacerbated problems with an already-precarious job market, upending expectations for post-graduate employment – particularly among PhD students. News of university budget shortfalls, hiring freezes, and furloughs have in turn … Read more
Terence Wood, Christopher Hoy, and Jonathan Pryke China’s rise as an aid power is changing the way political elites and policymakers in OECD countries think about aid. Responding to the perceived geostrategic leverage that China gains from its aid, decisionmakers have increasingly viewed their country’s aid as a means of advancing foreign policy goals overseas. … Read more
Gabriele Magni and Zoila Ponce de Leon The effect of gender in the response rate of politicians to inquiries about healthcare and unemployment support Women politicians are more responsive than men when people come to them seeking health care and economic support, our newly published study on gender and government responsiveness reveals. Our research, conducted in 2017, … Read more
Jean-François Daoust, Richard Nadeau, Ruth Dassonneville, Erick Lachapelle, Éric Bélanger, Justin Savoie, and Clifton van der Linden Mass compliance with recently enacted public health measures such as social distancing or lockdowns can have a definitive impact on coronavirus transmissions and, by extension, the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths. It is thus fundamental to understand … Read more