RESEARCH
AREAS OF INTEREST: Political Economy, Applied
Microeconomics, Public Economics, Family Economics.
RESEARCH PAPERS:
·
Mobilization
and Persuasion of Political Advertising
[version April 2010]
A completely
revised version entitled ‘Civic Duty and Political Advertising’ has been
published in Economic Theory online DOI:
10.1007/s00199-011-0655-1
This paper proposes a model of
informative political advertising that incorporates both mobilization and
persuasion aspects of advertising. An uncertain-voter model of two-candidate
political competition is proposed, where candidates have fixed symmetric
ideological positions and unknown qualities and can use campaign spending, in
the form of (positive) advertising, to inform voters about their qualities. By
reducing or eliminating voters' uncertainty about who is the right candidate,
political advertising can mobilize citizens as well as make them change opinion
about which candidate to vote for. We characterize the level of informative
political advertising chosen by candidates as well as conditions under which
partial or full turnout emerges in equilibrium. Comparative static analysis
allows us to evaluate the implications of different policies aiming at
increasing levels of turnout. For example, we find that policies that increase
voters' ex-ante propensity to vote, such as public vote-awareness policies or
non-partisan get-out-the-vote movements, can lead to either an increase or a
decrease in political advertising as well as in the probability that the
candidate preferred by a majority of (all informed) citizens is elected.
· Dynastic Accumulation of Wealth (with Emmanuel Thibault) [version June 2008]
Why do some dynasties maintain the
fortune of their founders while others completely squander it in few generations?
What are the causal mechanisms that underlie the intergenerational transmission
of wealth? Is there a role for public policies aiming at improving long-run
social mobility and wealth inequalities? To address these questions, we use a
basic deterministic microfounded model based on two main ingredients: the
“hunger for accumulation” and the “willingness to exert effort”. The interplay
between these two elements allows our dynamic model (i) to generate a variety
of wealth accumulation and effort choice dynamics (ii) to provide an
explanation for some macroeconomic features of social mobility and class
structure as well as for the existence and the demise of the rich bourgeoisie.
Furthermore, we analyze the effect on wealth accumulation of inheritance
taxation and extend our setting to variable wage opportunities and exogenous
shocks. Our analysis points to the crucial role of our two key ingredients,
rather than of initial wealth or transitory shocks to wealth, in generating the
patterns of wealth accumulation within a family lineage.
·
Do Voters Vote Ideologically? (with Antonio Merlo)
The Journal of Economic Theory, Vol 144,
Issue 5, September 2009, Pages 1868-1894
In this paper we address the
following question: To what extent is the hypothesis that voters vote
“ideologically” (i.e., they always vote for the candidate who is ideologically
“closest” to them) testable or falsifiable? We show that using data only on how
individuals vote in a single election, the hypothesis that voters vote
ideologically is irrefutable, regardless of the number of candidates competing
in the election. On the other hand, using data on how the same individuals vote
in multiple elections, the hypothesis that voters vote ideologically is
potentially falsifiable, and we provide general conditions under which the
hypothesis can be tested.
·
A
Structural Model of Turnout and Voting in Multiple Elections (with Antonio Merlo) [Working paper version, August 2007], the revised version is published in The Journal of the European Economic
Association, Vol. 9,
Issue 2, April 2011, Pages 209-245
Understanding citizens' electoral
behaviour (e.g., selective abstention and split-ticket voting), represents a
fundamental step in the analysis of democratic institutions. In this paper, we
assess the extent to which sincere voting can explain observed patterns of
participation and voting in
·
Policy Positions, Information Acquisition, and Turnout (Working paper version 2006)
Final version published in The Scandinavian
Journal of Economics, December 2006
The objective of this paper is to
investigate the relationship between policy preferences, information
acquisition, and turnout. More specifically, we characterize the choice of
acquiring political information and voting as a function of citizens’ policy
preferences. We conduct comparative static analysis on the information
technology and we investigate the impact of a perceived polarization on
information acquisition and turnout decisions. We find that: (i)
middle-of-the-road citizens are the most likely both to acquire political
information and to abstain; (ii) an
increase in the effectiveness of information has a higher (positive) impact on
turnout and on the fraction of the electorate who is informed than a
comparable decrease in the cost of information;
(iii) following a perceived polarization both information and abstention
increase.
·
A
Dynamic Model of Voting (Working paper version
2004)
Final version published in the International
Economic Review, May 2007
under the title ‘Candidate Valence: Evidence from US Presidential
Elections’
We propose and estimate a dynamic
spatial model of voting. Using individual-level data on voting decisions in two
consecutive presidential elections, we identify and estimate (1) the
distribution of voters' policy positions and (2) candidates' valence. In
addition to providing an equilibrium interpretation of observed individual
voting profiles and aggregate electoral outcomes, we use the estimated model to
conduct counterfactual experiments to assess the impact of candidates' policy
positions, valence, and voters' information on the outcomes of elections and to
evaluate the performance of the electoral process.
Work in Progress
• Campaign Advertising and Career Concerns
• Fuzzy Political Campaign (with Ming Li)
• Decentralization, Media, and Candidate Selection
• Dynamic
Allocation of Favors