Policy specialization in the U.S. Congress benefits the institution collectively and members individually. Yet members of Congress (MCs) are insufficiently specialized to optimize lawmaking success (Volden and Wiseman 2020). In this paper, we demonstrate the increasing propensity of MCs to...

Labor unions' greatest potential for political influence likely arises from their direct connection to millions of individuals at the workplace. There, they may change the ideological positions of both unionizing workers and their non-unionizing management. In this paper, we analyze the...

We study how citizens' right to directly decide on policies through popular initiatives affects the attractiveness of extreme candidates in representative elections. In our theoretical framework, single prominent policy issues on which individual voters hold extreme views get a large weight in...

We study how political parties share power internally by analyzing the allocation of list positions to different factions. We develop a theory of intraparty bargaining in which list positions shape the mobilization efforts of party activists in different factions. Our results allow us to link...

Fatal school shootings often spark support for stricter gun laws, threatening the gun lobby’s influence and agenda. To prevent political fallout, do pro-gun Political Action Committees increase contributions after fatal school shootings? Leveraging a novel dataset of pro-gun PAC contributions...

This paper examines the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which lifted bans on independent expenditures by corporations and unions. Using a difference-in-differences design, the study compares states with and without pre-existing bans, focusing on gubernatorial elections. The...

We investigate whether US House representatives favour special interest groups over constituents in periods of low media attention to politics. Analysing 666 roll calls from 2005 to 2018, we show that representatives are more likely to vote against their constituency's preferred position the...

We study the strategic interaction between candidates to office and the print media, exploring the following tension: while the media is instrumental for candidates to communicate with voters, candidates and media outlets have conflicting preferences over the contents of media reporting. We...

A well-established line of academic inquiry argues that state capture emerges in contexts of weak governance institutions. However, Panama is an outlier case featuring high levels of state capture despite strong governance institutions. To better understand state capture in Panama, this paper...

Labor unions' greatest potential for political influence likely arises from their direct connection to millions of individuals at the workplace. There, they may change the ideological positions of both unionizing workers and their non-unionizing management. In this paper, we analyze the...

Routine immunization coverage estimated in surveys often substantially differs from figures reported in administrative records, presenting a dilemma for researchers and policy makers. Using high-frequency phone surveys and administrative records from government sources in 36 low- and...

The Poor People's Campaign (PPC) of 1968 was focused on highlighting, and ultimately reducing, poverty in the United States. As part of the campaign, protestors from across the country were transported to Washington, D.C. in 6 separate bus caravans, each of which made stops en route to rest,...

This chapter discusses the theoretical foundations of campaign finance regulation with a particular focus on the central concepts—liberty, equality, corruption, participation, and democracy—that have animated scholarly debates. The chapter begins by outlining key concepts from the legal...

We study the relationship between corporate political activity and technology adoption when incumbents may deter entry. We propose that a greater amount of campaign donations to politicians is associated with less likelihood of new technology adoption. We also suggest that the local political...

In democracies, political parties promise to expand social benefits to attract voters in the lead-up to elections. However, we know relatively little whether such campaign promises effectively sway benefiting voters. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we estimate the causal effects of an...

We study the consequences of campaign finance disclosure laws in a model of informative campaign finance. Campaign spending can affect electoral outcomes and also signal policy information to politicians. Under mandatory disclosure donors may engage in spending that runs counter to their...

Politicians’ influence depends on their relationships with other powerful politicians. In a network of elected representatives based on their committee assignments, I use network centrality as a measure of such influence. I use plausibly exogenous variation in funding to show that well-funded...

This paper explores the labor market returns to working on a victorious political campaign. Using unique administrative data from Brazil, we track the earnings and employment of campaign workers before and after close elections spanning nearly 20 years. We identify sizable returns to working for...

In their study, Grier et al. (2023) explore the causal relationship between campaign contributions and roll-call voting. Their analysis focuses on the influence of campaign contributions on two specific anti-sugar votes conducted in 2013 and 2018. The authors identify a substantial increase in...

It has become increasingly popular for scholars to investigate the technology of political, personal microtargeting (PMT). We review a sample of 62 research articles in the field of political PMT and argue that these studies can be grouped according to different orientations: an interpretative...