Completed papers
Self-Reinforced Polarization (submitted)
This note asks why parties can appear more polarized than voters. It develops a simple dynamic model of electoral competition in which some voters are impressionable and adjust their preferences to past party positions. The anticipation of this influence creates intertemporal trade-offs for parties, which may ultimately lead to polarization. The framework delivers well-defined equilibria and shows how forward-looking incentives can sustain party polarization even in an initially homogeneous electorate.
Polarization for Exploration, with Gema Lax-Martínez (under review)
Party polarization may yield new insights into voter preferences by directing attention to specific issues. We investigate theoretically and empirically the relationship between party polarization and party learning. In our two-period model, parties are initially uncertain about voter preferences but acquire information if they polarize. This framework reveals a novel polarizing force: parties’ exploration incentives. Under certain conditions, a party polarizes only to learn the true state of public opinion, thus enabling more informed future decisions. To illustrate these mechanisms, we examine the Spanish abortion debate. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, we identify shifts in the tone of politicians’ tweets driven by rising public attention to abortion, which itself stems from prior party polarization. We further calibrate our model using Spanish survey data to assess whether polarization was driven solely by exploration incentives.
The Timing of Pledges in Electoral Campaigns, with Anke Gerber
We study parties’ dynamic behavior in electoral campaigns when the order of moves is endogenous. We consider two ideology- and office- motivated parties who sequentially make policy announcements on two political issues. No order of moves is imposed: each party can take any available action after any history, and elections occur once no party chooses to act further. Crucially, parties’ incentives are shaped by the endogenous timing, allowing us to treat the ordering of parties’ announcement as a strategic variable and to study voters whose preferences depend on it. Our results provide new insights into the role of sequencing in electoral competition and into parties’ strategies in multi-issue environments.
Working papers
The Long-Term Effects of a Massacre, with Gema Lax-Martínez and Carlos Victoria-Lanzón
This paper applies the network model of Galeotti et al (2010) to study how localized infrastructure destruction shapes social capital. In the model, voting is a coordination game with strategic complementarities, where denser networks foster higher turnout. We then test these predictions using the case of the 1937 attack on civilians fleeing Málaga during the Spanish Civil War, which destroyed a key coastal road and isolated nearby towns. Comparing municipalities differentially affected by this shock, we find that isolated towns developed stronger internal bonds, reflected in persistently higher levels of political participation. Our identification strategy relies on within-province variation in proximity to the bombed road, and the results prove robust across multiple specifications, alternative definitions of treatment, and placebo tests. Finally, we explore mechanisms using a difference-in-differences approach, focusing on literacy and population growth.
Work in Progress
Strategic Choices of Political Leaders
Identifying Feedback Effects in the Lab