Research

We propose a model of elections in which partisans wish to convince themselves that their party is the better choice. They select information sources from a broad array of media outlets with different biases to achieve that goal, but they may not always succeed due to their rationality which acts as a constraint. We explore how asymmetries between the two political sides skew electoral outcomes despite rationality. Here we consider salient examples such as asymmetric exposure or asymmetric trust in media, as well as propaganda, but this notion of partisanship is easily applicable to a wide variety of electoral contexts. 

Haiku version:

Voters source signals

To preserve preferred beliefs

Wrong party might win

We consider an infinitely repeated legislative bargaining model with a dynamically evolving status quo. Three players, one of whom is permanently endowed with veto power, must split a fixed budget in each period. Despite her additional power, the veto player cannot always asymptotically extract the full surplus. The non-veto players endogenously prevent each other’s expropriation when they are patient and have high initial allocations in the unique stationary, symmetric, stage-undominated, coalition-proof Markov perfect equilibrium. Further, we show that veto power and higher recognition probability may be strategic substitutes rather than complements. We also provide an intuition behind selfish egalitarianism between non-veto players. Our technique of employing coalition-proofness and iteratively generating a new equilibrium with novel predictions sheds light on the divergence in recent literature on the value of veto power and may be useful in other environments. 

Haiku version:

Weak players protect

Each other when both weaker

Too much power hurts

We consider non-cooperative bargaining over a fixed surplus between two groups that may differ in size and the supermajority threshold they employ for within-group ratification. We find that total allocation to a group does not depend on group size and increases with the supermajority threshold. We use the Gini coefficient to study within-group inequality as an outcome of interest and find that inequality increases with group size and decreases with the supermajority threshold. Finally, we study delegation by concentrating the ability to influence proposals within a subset of group members. Delegation to a subgroup decreases the group's total allocation because non-delegates accept lower allocations. Inequality is higher if delegation is employed, and it is decreasing in the size of the delegate committee.

Haiku version:

Two groups bargaining

In-group protocols dictate

Inter-group outcomes

In legislative bargaining, the proposer is often able to extract a greater proportion of the surplus. However, a higher likelihood of being selected as the proposer can backfire, as it may reduce the probability that the agent is included in a winning coalition. We experimentally test the theoretical prediction of potentially negative returns to recognition probability in two-period legislative bargaining noted in Baron & Ferejohn (1989). 

We find that higher recognition probability benefits subjects in all treatments, except one in which we automate the second period. It is because proposers often favor the member with the greater recognition probability as a coalition partner, and such tendency varies depending on the proposer’s recognition probability, counter to the theoretical prediction. In all treatments, a vast majority of subjects exhibit a strict preference for higher recognition probability

Haiku version:

Higher recog. prob.

Theory says lower welfare

Lab says opposite

A challenger must use her limited learning budget to reduce uncertainty regarding voter preferences and choose a policy position in an n-dimensional space. An incumbent has a fixed position and a valence advantage, which drives differentiation. I find that optimal learning follows step-wise specialization because returns to learning along any dimension are initially convex and eventually concave. Further, against a weak (strong) incumbent, the challenger differentiates along dimensions with less (greater) expected variance, and less (greater) salience.

We consider a continuous-time career concerns model. As in Holmström (1999), there is symmetric uncertainty about a worker's ability. Additionally, the worker has private information about her cost of effort. The sequence of observed outputs allows learning about both attributes of the worker. We compare our results against a benchmark with commonly known effort costs. Introducing cost uncertainty induces the worker to produce greater effort in her early career, less effort in her mid-career -- and surprisingly -- greater effort in her late career. This is driven by the implications of effort cost type on the market's beliefs regarding ability.

Haiku version:

With private info

Worker's optimal effort

Goes up, down, then up

We build a model in which two office-motivated candidates strategically choose policies while two policy-motivated large donors strategically choose how much to give. Voter ideal points are distributed over the policy space and they either abstain or vote non-strategically for the closer candidate. Candidates use own and donated funds to drive turnout. Donors give to candidates in close races and with more extreme positions. Self-funded candidates need to raise less outside funding and may choose more moderate positions.