Do legislators learn to use new communication technologies from each other? Using data from the official homepages of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, we test whether web-based communication technology diffuses through congressional state delegations. We use a natural experimental...

How do decentralized systems collectively solve problems? Here we explore the interplay among three canonical forms of collective organization—markets, networks, and hierarchies—in aggregating decentralized problem solving. We examine these constructs in the context of how the...

Interest in deliberative theories of democracy has grown tremendously among political theorists over the last twenty years. Many scholars in political behavior, however, are skeptical that it is a practically viable theory, even on its own terms. They argue (inter alia) that most people dislike...

How do decentralized systems collectively solve problems? Here we explore the interplay among three canonical forms of collective organization - markets, networks, and hierarchies - in aggregating decentralized problem solving. We examine these constructs in the context of how the offices of...

Last year was difficult for Google Flu Trends (GFT). In early 2013, Nature reported that GFT was estimating more than double the percentage of doctor visits for influenza like illness than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention s (CDC) sentinel reports during the 2012 2013 flu season...

We examine the social antecedents for contributing to campaigns, with a particular focus on the role of population density. Using 10 years of US campaign contribution data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), we find that the idea of contributing to a campaign is easier to spread in a...

Do retirement savings policies--such as tax subsidies or employer-provided pension plans--increase total saving for retirement or simply induce shifting across accounts? We revisit this classic question using 45 million observations on wealth for the population of Denmark. We find that a...

International organizations like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have been supporting reform initiatives in developing country governments since at least the 1980s. Various authors have criticized this support, arguing that international organizations use their influence to impose...

This paper studies the relationship between sovereign spreads and the interaction between debt composition and debt levels in advanced and emerging market countries. It finds that in emerging market countries there is a significant correlation between spreads and debt levels. This correlation,...

The canonical theory of taxation holds that the incidence of a tax is independent of the side of the market which is responsible for remitting the tax to the government. However, this prediction does not survive in certain circumstances, for example when the ability to evade taxes differs across...