Recent Publications

Here are some selected papers, published since I was last promoted at Michigan State in June 2020.

• "Centered Advantage: a geographic measure of partisan fairness in redistricting" with Jeff Barton. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (Dec 2025).

Blurb: A geographic seat distribution baseline in redistricting maps, based on neighborhoods.   

•  "A Decomposition of Partisan Advantage in Electoral District Maps”, with J. Barton. Electoral Studies, 92: 102871 (2024).

Blurb: Your notion of fairness, geography, laws, and discretionary choices contribute to how partisan a redistricting map appears to be.

•  "Lognormal (re)distribution: A macrofounded theory of inequality", with D. Xefteris. European Economic Review, 170: 104863 (2024).

Blurb: Policy-makers choose policies that induce a lognormal distribution of income that is optimal for an agent richer than the median voter.

• "Multilateral Regime Change". Journal of Public Economics, 205: 104562 (2022). 

Blurb: A theory of multilateral conflict with ideologically motivated countries, with an application to the intervention in Afghanistan (2001-14).

• "A measure of partisan advantage in redistricting." Election Law Journal, 21(1): 84-103 (2022). Online Appendix

Blurb: I introduce a simple measure of partisan fairness in redistricting maps. Easy reading, and data from 2012 to 2020.  

Media: Science News, MSU Today, The Conversation. 

• "Implementation by vote-buying mechanisms", with D. Xefteris. American Economic Review, 111(9): 2811-28 (2021). Online Appendix. 

Blurb: We characterize the class of choice correspondences that are implementable by vote-buying mechanisms.

You can find previous publications scrolling below or on my Google Scholar profile, and a complete list on my CV.

Early Career Publications

A selection of publications prior to June 2020, arranged by topic.

-On coalition formation and party formation:

• 'The Origin of Parties: Theory, and Evidence from the United States Congress 1789-1797', Economics & Politics, Vol. 25, N. 3, pages 313-334 (2013).

Blurb: A test of a theory of party formation based on party incentives to form voting blocs, with an application to the US Senate in the 1790s.

• 'A Spatial Theory of Party Formation', Economic Theory, Vol. 49, N. 3, pages 549-570 (2012).

Blurb: Legislators have incentives to form voting blocs. An equilibrium with two opposed voting blocs emerges.

• 'Voting Blocs, Party Discipline and Party Formation', Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 73, N. 1, pages 111-135 (2011).

Blurb: A theory of party formation based on the incentives to form a voting bloc, with probabilistic preferences.

• 'Endogenous Parties in an Assembly', American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, N. 1, pages 16-26 (2011).

Blurb: My theory of party formation, in a more accessible version, and with a solution concept that is robust to coalitional deviations.

• 'United We Vote.' Journal of Public Economic Theory 9(4): 1-33 (2007).

-On voting and elections:

• 'Tactical Extremism', with F. Giovannoni. American Political Science Review, Vol. 113, N.1, pages 282-286 (2019). Supplementary Appendix

Blurb: An explanation of why and when mainstream political parties choose to embrace extreme policies.

Media: 'LSE USAPP blog'

• 'Citizen Candidates under Uncertainty.' Social Choice and Welfare 29(2): 317-331 (2007).

• 'Contested Elections in a Citizen Candidate Model.' Economics and Politics 18: 95-102 (2006).

-On utility theory:

• 'On the Spatial Representation of Preference Profiles', Economic Theory, Vol. 52, N. 1, pages 103-128 (2013).

Blurb: Commonly used quadratic Euclidean utilities with n>1 agents are characterized by three axioms: separability, single-peakedness, and something utterly implausible. 

Reviewed by Mathematical Reviews. 'Review (pdf)'

• 'Foundations of Spatial Preferences', Journal of Mathematical Economics, Vol. 47, N. 2, pages 200-205 (2011).

Blurb: A class of Minkowski-like utility functions in m>1 dimensions (including Quadratic Euclidean) is characterized by separability and single-peakedness.

• 'Utility Representation of Risk Neutral Preferences in Multiple Dimensions.' Quarterly Journal of Political Science 4(4): 379-385 (2009).

-On public economics:

• 'Information and Targeted Spending', with A. Nicolò. Theoretical Economics, Vol 14, N. 2, pages 373-402 (2019). Supplementary Appendix

Blurb: An electoral theory of targeted public good provision with imperfectly informed voters.

Reviewed by Mathematical Reviews. 'Review (pdf)'

• 'Cohesion, Insurance and Redistribution.' Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2(4): 287-305 (2007).

-On legislative bargaining:

• 'Slicing and Bundling', with O. Câmara. Journal of Politics, Vol. 79, N.4, pages 1460-1464 (2017).

Blurb: A theory of legislative agendas and policy-making, based on the idea that one can slice policies into smaller components.

• 'Legislative bargaining with endogenous rules' with K. Shepsle. Journal of Politics, Vol. 77, N.4, pages 1076-1088 (2015).

Blurb: A dynamic electoral theory of legislative bargaining with endogenous institutions.

-On game theory:

• 'Equilibrium Selection in Sequential Games with Imperfect Information', with A. Llorente-Saguer, R. Morton and A. Nicolò. Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 109, pages 465-483 (2018).

Blurb: We propose an equilibrium selection criterion (to pick the one that holds for the largest set of beliefs). It works better than alternatives in experiments on vertical contracting and electoral competition.

-Reviewed by Mathematical Reviews. 'Review (pdf)'

-On discrimination:

• 'Discrimination and Assimilation at School'. Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 156, pages 48-58 (2017).

Blurb: A theory on the strategic incentives to assimilate and to discriminate against those trying to assimilate, which explains 'acting white' as an equilibrium outcome.

-On welfare economics:

• 'Social Welfare with Net Utilities', with D. Xefteris. Forthcoming, Special Issue in Honor of Ken Arrow, Public Choice.

Blurb: A preference relation over utility vectors satisfies a collection of desirable axioms if and only if it is representable by a function with a particular "sum of power functions" functional form.

-On financial markets and asset pricing:

• 'Asset Pricing and Asymmetric Reasoning', with E. Asparouhova, P. Bossaerts and B. Zame. Journal of Political Economy, Vol 123, N. 1, pages 66-122 (2015).

Blurb: Theory and experiments on asset trading with a mix of boundedly rational agents, some more rational, some more bounded, than others.