Publications

Vague News and Fake News, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023
Abstract: I consider a situation in which citizens consult a report by the media to learn the state of the world. Besides the true state of the world, the report can contain two types of inaccuracies: persistent bias following from the media's ideology and random noise. Employing a theoretical model, I show that citizens perform additional investigations if there is much variance in noise. In contrast, citizens are not affected by persistent bias as they can anticipate it. These predictions are confirmed through an empirical analysis of the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, in which I utilize sentiment data to differentiate persistent bias from noise in media reports. The results suggest that media quality is more of a concern than media neutrality.

Working papers

The Political Economy of Legal Regimes, with Daniël Vullings and Lambert Schoonbeek (submitted)
Abstract: We develop a theoretical model about the choice of legal regimes with a legislator, judiciary, entrepreneur, and citizens. We consider an elected, potentially biased legislator who enacts the law by selecting a strict liability or negligence regime. Under strict liability, culpability is based solely on damage caused by the entrepreneur, while negligence considers both damage and intent. A neutral, appointed judiciary sets fines that apply when the law is not obeyed. We show that a negligence regime outperforms a strict liability regime as it employs more information. Yet, we derive that a biased legislator may cater to the wishes of the economically powerful entrepreneur and select strict liability because court cases are less common under this regime. We predict that transitions from strict liability to negligence regimes occur when political equality increases and court efficiency improves. We present historical data with trends that are in line with our theoretical predictions.

Work in progress

Learning Fast and Slow: Social Dynamics and Patterns of Change
Abstract: We present a multi-period model on the diffusion of social norms. In each period, citizens have to decide whether to adopt a new norm or to stick to the status quo. The benefits of the new norm are unobserved but the citizens can learn in two ways. First, they can engage in active learning by just trying the new norm and observing the outcomes directly. Second, they can socially learn: observing whether others consistently conform to the new norm provides information about its benefits. We consider different types of citizens that are distinguished by a preference for trying new norms. We show that citizens more open to change engage in active learning. More hesitant citizens may learn socially. We argue that active learning results in fast societal change, while social learning leads to slower diffusion of norms. Furthermore, we show that globalization --- which increases the number of observable peers --- can either accelerate or slow this process, depending on the distribution of change preferences in the society.

Informing committees with reputational concerns
Abstract: The recent increases in political personalization and fragmentation shift the electorate's focus from government performance towards officials' individual behaviour. I argue that this can create alternative reputational concerns for elected officials. I present a model in which a committee of two officials with such concerns votes on policy implementations. The officials are truthfully informed by an advisor about the optimal policy implementation but their reputational concerns may discourage them from adopting this advice. I study how the advisor can optimally inform the two officials and show that there is no single golden rule that can always be followed. Specifically, the optimal order of informing officials with reputational concerns depends on the structure of the committee --- whether the officials' partialities are clashing or similar. Because of this complexity, I advocate for independent advisors (statistical offices, academics, etc.) who should be free to share their discoveries as the circumstances demand.

The separation of powers and the trade-off between corruption and favoritism, with Daniël Vullings
Abstract: This paper investigates the role of the separation of powers in addressing favoritism and corruption within governments. We develop a theoretical model to mirror constitutions with different shapes of power separations between a biased legislator and a neutral judiciary. The traditional role of power separations is twofold. First, the separation of decision powers involves multiple actors in decision-making, creating plurality in preferences. As such, individual preferences of the governmental branches are supposed to be eliminated from final governing choices. Second, a power separation should create checks and balances --- a monitoring system in which the branches control each other for the abuse of power and the usage of public resources for personal gain. In this paper, we show that the two roles for a power separation are substitutes: limiting the impact of the branches’ individual preferences (i.e. less favoritism) comes at the cost of reduced monitoring (i.e. more corruption).