Research

Some papers of mine:

Advance Voting and Political Competition, Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 33 (2022), pp. 53-66 (link)

This paper presents a simple analysis of political campaigning incentives when the electorate make their voting decisions at different moments before Election Day. Many jurisdictions accommodate such voters by accepting mail-in ballots or setting up polling places where individuals may vote early. Since politicians can thereby alter their campaign promises while citizens vote, they have incentives to cater to different segments of the electorate at different times. If candidates act on these incentives, those segments of the electorate who tend to vote early will pay higher taxes and receive fewer subsidies than what had been announced at the time when they voted, while later-voting segments benefit.

Buildings and Welfare, Rationality and Society, Vol. 34, Issue 4 (Nov., 2022), pp. 526-547 (link)

This article finds that the approval rate of applications for social assistance is higher in welfare offices with building characteristics that enhance the visibility of entry (such as elevated entrances or space to traverse between street and building). A fitting explanation for this finding is that persons looking for social assistance apply more conservatively when others can see them, particularly if their chances of approval are low, which raises the approval rate by reducing the denominator. Applicants do this because of widespread social norms of self-reliance; they dislike being thought of as ‘welfare cases’. The data on approval rates come from individual welfare offices, sometimes over anonymity-affecting changes in welfare regimes to aid identification, and the data on building characteristics are gathered from GoogleMaps’ ‘StreetView’ feature. The visibility effects are small but pervasive, and weakly decline in the rate of poverty, suggesting that the self-reliance norm weakens as poverty increases.

The Impact of Earlier Pub Closing Hours on  Emergency Calls to the Police during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Sweden, Addiction  Research & Theory (2023), pp. 1-5, with Niklas Jakobsson (link)

On 20 November 2020, the government of Sweden banned on-premise alcohol sales after 10:30 p.m. and then after 8 p.m. on December 24. This study aims to estimate the impact of earlier pub closing hours on emergency calls to the police. We use a quasi-experimental hybrid differences-in-differences design, drawing on data for emergency calls in Sweden. The primary outcome measure is the daily number of emergency calls to the police in Sweden 70 days before the intervention and 70 days after the intervention. The primary control series is the daily number of emergency calls to the police in Sweden during the preceding year, 70 days before the intervention and 70 days after the intervention. We fail to find an effect on daily emergency calls, or nighttime emergency calls to the police, from the restrictions on the sale of alcohol. There is, however, some evidence indicating that weekend emergency calls may have been affected, but that potential effect does not translate into an overall effect. While our study is limited in its focus, it contributes to using a wide range of time windows and a large geographical area (the whole of Sweden) to inform on displacement effects, as well as in considering a broader set of robustness checks. We suggest that our results and future work should be seen in light of our limitations and our contribution, respectively. 

Marriage and Biology (link)

Since only women can give birth, female infidelity puts households at risk of raising alien genetic material whereas male infidelity does not. This means that husbands have more to lose from their partners’ infidelity and therefore have a stronger interest in deterrence than their wives do. If men earn most of the household’s market income, they are more able to withhold consumption opportunities from a spouse than if the roles were reversed. Therefore, it is in the household’s interest that husbands out-earn wives. This paper develops a model to capture these biological incentives. It is consistent with several widely-observed phenomena and also produces novel testable implications.

 Puzzling Evidence on Voter Turnout, Rationality and Society, Vol. 29, Issue 4 (Nov., 2017), pp. 449-470 (link)

In this empirical analysis of voting patterns in five countries on days when one or more national referenda were held, voter turnout appears to decline in the number of concurrent referenda, in contrast to standard theories’ predictions and regardless of method used to hold constant the quality of the referenda. Multiple concurrent referenda imply “quantity discounts” as one may vote on more ballots in one visit to the polling station. They should also draw more voters due to the wider range of interests attracted when more issues are up for vote. Yet, none of this seems to happen in the data. More recent developments, such as rule-utilitarian and information-based theories of voting, fare similarly poorly in light of the evidence presented in this article; an extension on social theories of voting does better.

The Rights and Welfare of Animals (please send me an e-mail to request a copy)

This article develops an ethical theory informed by market behaviour, in which it is permissible under many circumstances for humans to eat animals, use their fur, make them work, etc., even if animals have the same (choice-protecting) rights as humans (varying the contents of those rights).

Vaccination Nudges: A Study of Pre-Booked COVID-19 Vaccinations in Sweden, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 309 (Sept., 2022), with Carl Bonander and Niklas Jakobsson (link)

A nudge changes people's actions without removing their options or altering their incentives. During the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the Swedish Region of Uppsala sent letters with pre-booked appointments to inhabitants aged 16–17 instead of opening up manual appointment booking. Using regional and municipal vaccination data, we document a higher vaccine uptake among 16- to 17-year-olds in Uppsala compared to untreated control regions (constructed using the synthetic control method as well as neighboring municipalities). The results highlight pre-booked appointments as a strategy for increasing vaccination rates in populations with low perceived risk. 

When do Default Nudges Work? Forthcoming in Oxford Open Economics, with Carl Bonander and Niklas Jakobsson (link)

Nudging is a burgeoning topic in science and in policy, but evidence on the effectiveness of nudges among differentially-incentivized groups is lacking. This paper exploits regional variations in the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine in Sweden to examine the effect of a nudge on groups whose intrinsic incentives are different: 16-17-year-olds, for whom Covid-19 is not dangerous, and 50-59-year-olds, who face a substantial risk of death or severe dis-ease. We find a significantly stronger response in the younger group, consistent with the theory that nudges are more effective for choices that are not meaningful to the individual. 

Some works in progress (single-authored):

Casus Belli

Suggests that wars may be fought to decrease military preparedness (broadly defined). Two overprepared potential belligerents may under certain circumstances find it unwise to disarm unilaterally for fear of being extorted by the other party, and consequently fight a war in order to monitor one another's disarmament.

Meal Signals

Presents data from restaurant which suggest that persons of a big body type eat, if anything, somewhat more than do slimmer individuals. Yet, when examining meal orders among people eating together, being of a relatively bigger body type (compared to one's table companions) is associated with ordering lighter meals (controlling for absolute body type). This finding is consistent with a 'signalling theory' of meal orders in which people of bigger body types forego a more satisfying eating experience in order to signal healthier values to their (relatively) slimmer table companions. The finding is also consistent with survey findings of stigmatizing attitudes towards obesity. Additionally, the data also suggest that people tend to order similar meals when eating together, in line with evidence on "contagious obesity" (e.g. Christakis and Fowler, 2007).

Please consult my CV for descriptions of these and other papers. Also feel free to send me an e-mail with further inquiries.