Research
Working papers
In Focus: Political Social-Learning: Short Term Memory and Cycles of Polarisation, Joint with Gilat Levy.
Abstract: We analyse a dynamic model in which voters use past observations to learn about the optimal outcome but have a finite memory. Political parties are self-interested, with polarised ideal policies, and voters with party loyalty are responsive to a certain degree to parties whose policy is based on a better interpretation of past observations. We show that short-term memory leads to political cycles of polarisation and convergence. Historical periods of convergence lead parties to polarise, whereas periods of historical polarisation imply convergence of platforms. More generally our framework allows us to model the strategic use of biased histories in political competition such as the use of nostalgia.
Paper available upon request
Publications
Signaling and Electing Motivations in a Voting Model with Common Values and Responsive Candidates, Econometrica (2003), Vol. 71, No. 4, p1083-1120.
It Takes Two: An Explanation of the Democratic Peace,, (with Gilat Levy) Journal of the European Economic Association (2004), Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp 1-29.
A Decision-Theoretic Basis for Choice Shifts in Groups, (with Kfir Eliaz and Debraj Ray) American Economic Review (2006). Vol. 96, No. 4, September 2006. pp. 1321-1332.
Group Decision-Making in the Shadow of Disagreement, with Kfir Eliaz and Debraj Ray) Journal of Economic Theory (2007), Volume 132, Issue 1, January 2007, Pages 236-273.
On The Limits of Communication in Multidimensional Cheap Talk: A Comment, (with Gilat Levy). Econometrica (2007), 75 (3). pp. 885-893.
Bargaining Over New Ideas: The Distribution of Rents and the Stability of Innovative Firms, (with Mariagiovanna Baccara), Journal of the European Economic Association (2007), Vol. 5, No. 6, Pages 1095-1129.
Bidding For Attention and Competing for Votes in Political Debates, (with Gilat Levy), The proceedings of the Workshop on the Political Economy of Democracy (2008).
Coalition Formation Under Power Relations (with Michele Piccione), Theoretical Economics (2009), 4, (1).
When do Simple Policies Win? (with Gilat Levy), Economic Theory (Political Economy Special Issue), (2012) , 49(3).
Religious Beliefs, Participation and Cooperation. (with Gilat Levy), American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, (2012) 4(3): 121-51.
Dynamic Legislative Decision Making when Interest Groups Control the Agenda (with Gilat Levy), Journal of Economic Theory (2013), 148 (5). pp. 1862-1890. This paper supersedes a previous version, "Gradualism in Dynamic Influence Games".
Calvin’s Reformation in Geneva: Self and Social Signalling, (with Gilat Levy), Journal of Public Economic Theory (2014), 16 (5). pp. 730-742.
Rituals or Good Works: Social Signalling in Religious Organizations, (with Gilat Levy). Journal of European Economic Association (2014), 12 (5). pp. 1317-1360.
Preferences over Equality in the presence of Costly Income Sorting, (with Gilat Levy) American Economic Journal: Microeconomics (2015), vol. 7, no. 2, May 2015.
Correlation Neglect, Voting Behaviour and Information Aggregation (with Gilat Levy), American Economic Review (2015), vol. 105, no. 4, April 2015.
Does polarization of opinions lead to polarization of platforms? the case of correlation neglect, (with Gilat Levy), Quarterly Journal of Political Science (2015), 10(3):321-355 .
The Coevolution of Segregation, Polarised Beliefs and Discrimination: The Case of Private vs. State Education, (with Gilat Levy), American Economic Journal: Microeconomics (2017), Vol. 9, No. 4 (November), pp. 141-170
Information Diffusion in Networks with the Bayesian Peer Influence Heuristic with Gilat Levy, Games and Economic Behaviour (2018). vol. 109(C), pages 262-270
Private and Common Value Auctions with Ambiguity over Correlation, with Gilat Levy and Krittanai Laohakunakorn, Journal of Economic Theory (2019). Volume 184,
Echo Chambers and Their Effects on Economic and Political Outcomes, with Gilat Levy, Annual Review of Economics (2019) 11:1, 303-328 .
Religion and Segregation, Advances in the Economics of Religion (2019), International Economic Association Series, Edited by Jean-Paul Carvalho, Sriya Iyer and Jared Rubin.
A Maximum Likelihood Approach to Combining Forecasts, with Gilat Levy, Theoretical Economics (2021). Volume 16, Number 1 , pp. 49-71.
Polarized extremes and the confused centre: Campaign targeting of voters with correlation neglect, with Gilat Levy and Inés Moreno de Barreda , Quarterly Journal of Political Science (2021): Vol. 16: No. 2, pp 139-155.
Combining Forecasts in the Presence of Ambiguity over Correlation Structures, with Gilat Levy, Journal of Economic Theory (2022), Volume 199, January.
Persuasion with Correlation Neglect: A Full Manipulation Result, with Ines Moreno de Barreda and Gilat Levy. AER Insights (2022), Vol. 4, NO. 1, March (pp. 123-38) (For a previous working paper version, see Persuasion with Correlation Neglect. See also Joint Feasible Distributions over Posteriors: A Graphical Approach.)
Misspecified Politics and the Recurrence of Populism, with Gilat Levy and Alwyn Young, American Economic Review (2022), Vol. 112, NO. 3, March. See additional proofs (online appendix) here.
Other publications
Social Media and Political Polarisation. With Gilat Levy, LSE Public Policy Review. 2020; 1(1): 5, pp. 1–7.
Books
Workbook to accompany Political Economics-Explaining Economic Policy, by Persson and G. Tabellini (2000), with I. Brocas, M. Castenheira and D. Stromberg, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, London England.