Publications

A Simple Model of Competitive Testing, Economic Inquiry, forthcoming (latest draft here).

Slacktivism, Journal of Theoretical Politics, March 2023, 35(2): 126–143 (latest draft here).

Counting on My Vote Not Counting: Expressive Voting in Committees (with José-Alberto Guerra and Warn Nuarpear Lekfuangfu), Journal of Public Economics, January 2022, 205: 104555 (latest draft here).

Social Connectivity, Media Bias, and Correlation Neglect (with Philipp Denter and Martin Dumav), Economic Journal, July 2021, 637: 2033-2057 (latest draft here).

Optimal Price of Entry into a Competition, Economic Inquiry, January 2021, 59(1): 280-286 (latest draft here).

Optimal Information Censorship, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, July 2019, 163: 377-385 (latest draft here).

When Collective Ignorance Is Bliss: Theory and Experiment on Voting for Learning, with José-Alberto Guerra, Journal of Public Economics, January 2019, 169: 52-64 (latest draft here).

Sincere Voting in an Electorate with Heterogeneous Preferences, Economics Letters, May 2017, 154: 120-123 (latest draft here).

Working Papers

Troll Farms (with Philipp Denter), November 2024.

Political agents often aim to influence elections through troll farms – organisations that disseminate messages emulating genuine information. We study the behaviour of a troll farm that faces a heterogeneous electorate of partially informed voters, and aims to achieve a desired political outcome by targeting each type of voter with a specific distribution of messages. We show that such tactics are more effective when voters are otherwise well-informed, for example, when the media is of high quality. At the same time, increased polarisation, as well as deviations from Bayesian rationality, can reduce the negative effect of troll farms and restore efficiency of electoral outcomes.

Guns, pets, and strikes: an experiment on political action and social interactions (with José-Alberto Guerra), May 2025.

We study the role of political collective action in shaping subsequent social interactions. In an experiment, subjects choose whether to participate in real-world collective action. Following participation choices, we observe increased prosociality between participants, but not within other pairs. Based on this, we develop a model of participation, which predicts that higher valuation of the cause makes an individual expect higher participation by others, and higher expectation increases payoffs and makes an individual more likely to participate. We test these predictions using data from the experiment, finding support for them. This helps explain the role of coordination in collective action.

Voting behind the Veil of Ignorance, April 2025.

A committee consisting of two factions is considering a project whose distributive consequences are unknown. This uncertainty can be resolved at some unknown future time. By delaying approval, the committee can gradually learn which faction benefits from the project. Because support of both factions is required for approval, it can only happen when there is sufficient amount of uncertainty about the identities of winners and losers. I show that in many situations, a project is more likely to be approved if it gives a lower payoff to everyone. The probability of approval and expected payoffs of both factions are higher if the project is ex ante less likely to benefit the faction that tends to receive good news faster. Equilibrium amount of learning is excessive, and a deadline on adopting the project is often optimal.

A Flexible Measure of Voter Polarization, July 2025.

This paper introduces a definition of ideological polarization that enables a researcher to measure the dispersion of voter ideology around any central point. It also helps identify ideological cleavage points where polarization shifts most significantly. Applying this framework to U.S. voter survey data from 2004 to 2020 reveals that polarization around right-of-center positions steadily increased, while polarization around left-of-center positions remained stable before rising sharply. Following national elections, polarization tended to decrease around left-wing positions but increase around right-wing ones. Finally, the paper connects this notion of ideological polarization to other phenomena, such as affective polarization and increased salience of divisive issues.

Critical Mass in Collective Action (with José-Alberto Guerra and Warn Nuarpear Lekfuangfu), November 2024.

Using a laboratory experiment, we study the incentives of individuals to contribute to a public good that is provided if and only if the fraction of contributors reaches a certain threshold. We jointly vary the size of the group, the cost of contributing, the required threshold, and the framing of contributions (giving to the common pool, or not taking from the common pool). We find that a higher threshold makes individuals more likely to contribute. The effect is strong enough that in a small group, making the required threshold higher increases the probability that the public good is provided. In larger groups, however, the effect disappears. At the same time, we do not find a consistent effect of framing on the probability of contributing or on the likelihood of success.