We study a large-scale intervention designed by civil society organizations to reduce vote buying in Uganda’s 2016 elections. We study this intervention in light of a model where incumbents benefit from a first-mover and valence advantage, vote buying and campaigning are complementary, and...

The french fry was NOT invented in France, but in Belgium. This short paper, written in Dutch, describes the history of the french fry and explains why it's called the french fry despite being introduced to Americans in Belgium. Spoiler: the reason is that World War I soldiers in French-speaking...

We distinguish between ideational and interest-based appeals to voters on the supply side of politics, and integrate the Keynes-Hayek perspective on the importance of ideas with the Stigler-Becker approach emphasizing vested interests. In our model, political entrepreneurs discover identity and...

Diese Studie analysiert die aktuellen Entwicklungen von Verschwörungsmythen während der Corona-Pandemie. Die wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Bedrohung liegt in einer weitergehenden Spaltung der Gesellschaft mit negativen Folgen auch für den Wirtschaftsstandort Deutschland. Wie sollte...

Using large-scale survey data covering more than 110 countries and exploiting within-country variation across cohorts and surveys, we show that individuals with longer exposure to democracy display stronger support for democratic institutions. We bolster these baseline findings using an...

The hypothesized effects of educational attainment on adult civic engagement and attitudes provide some of the most important justifications for government intervention in the market for education. In this study, I present evidence on whether these externalities exist. I assess and implement two...

Education reforms at risk unless government allows for-profit free schoolsExecutive Summary:The criticism of the ‘profit motive’ in education is unjustified: we should not be concerned about the corporate structure of organisations that provide educational services. Furthermore, while people...

We distinguish between ideational and interest-based appeals to voters on the supply side of politics, and integrate the Keynes-Hayek perspective on the importance of ideas with the Stigler-Becker approach emphasizing vested interests. In our model, political entrepreneurs discover identity and...

Survey data from the United States, West Germany and East Germany are analyzed to compare individual attitudes towards political redistribution in each country. In West Germany the homo oeconomicus effect, the social rivalry effect and the public values effect simultaneously retain an...

In democratic societies individual attitudes of voters represent the foundations of policy making. We start by analyzing patterns in public opinion on migration and find that, across countries of different income levels, only a small minority of voters favour more open migration policies. Next...

A key idea in political economy is that policy is often tailored to voters who are not ideologically attached - swing voters. We show, however, that in political environments where political parties can use repression and violence to exclude voters from elections, they may optimally target the...

"Hydrocarbon Citizens tells the story of how the discovery of oil has transformed politics and societies in the Middle East. It argues that the creation of oil-dependent economies gave birth to a new type of citizen in the region: the "hydrocarbon citizen." These citizens hold attitudes, values,...

This paper shows how white migration out of the postbellum South diffused and entrenched Confederate culture across the United States at a critical juncture of westward expansion and postwar reconciliation. These migrants laid the groundwork for Confederate symbols and racial norms to become...

We study the evolution of belief systems that suppress productive effort. These include concerns about the envy of others, beliefs in the importance of luck for success, disdain for competitive effort, and traditional beliefs in witchcraft. We show that such demotivating beliefs can evolve when...

This paper investigates whether the COVID-19 crisis has affected the way we think about (political) institutions, as well as our broader (policy) attitudes and values. We fielded large online survey experiments in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, well into the first wave of the...

Introduction : the European environmental conscience in EU politics / Thomas Hoerber and Gabriel Weber -- A linked emissions trading scheme under alternative scenarios : implications for Europe and Brazil / Thais Diniz Oliveira, Angelo Costa Gurgel and Steve Tonry -- Has the time now come for...

ekz-Annotation: Der Fernsehmoderator und Evangelist bringt seine Kritik an der Lockdown-Politik zum Ausdruck und äussert sein Unverständnis über die Versuche, Sprache in Richtung Geschlechtergerechtigkeit zu verändern. Verlagswerbung: Maskendeals mit Millionenprovision. Eine...

Motivated by the public debate regarding corporate responsibility, we construct a memory-based model of decision-making to illustrate how corporate and political communication can impact policy preferences. We test the predictions of our model in a new large-scale survey of U.S. citizens on...

"For the better part of a century, the Left has been waging a slow, methodical battle for control of the institutions of Western Civilization. During most of that time, "business" - and American Big Business, in particular - remained the last redoubt for those who believed in free people, free...

Introduction: What Is at Stake? -- Understanding the Public Sphere -- Revitalizing the Public Sphere -- Why Businesses Need a Political Stance -- Creating the Political Brand -- Managing the Political Brand -- Conclusion: Filling the New Attitude with Life. .

This paper assesses the role of ideas in economic change, combining economic and historical analysis with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology. Belief systems shape the system of categories ( "pre-confirmatory bias" ) and perceptions (confirmatory bias), and are themselves...

Politicians are widely perceived to lose significance upon leaving office. Yet media accounts often highlight politicians' legacies as a source of influence that endures even after they retire. This article assesses these contrasting views by investigating the substance, endurance, and...

The elusive consensus of a society in crisis / Dimitris Katsikas -- 'It's not the austerity, stupid'. Interpreting the frames of the far-right wing radicalization / Vasiliki Georgiadou and Anastasia Kafe -- Greek elites' attitudes about the crisis / Dimitris Katsikas -- Framing the sacred :...

"Roman Frugality offers the first-ever systematic analysis of the variants of individual and collective self-restraint that shaped ancient Rome throughout its history and had significant repercussions in post-classical times. In particular, it tries to do the complexity of a phenomenon justice...

In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern, a vicious cycle could form...

Every policy relies on explicit or implicit assumptions about how people make choices. Those assumptions typically rest on an idealized model of how people think, rather than an understanding of how everyday thinking actually works. This year’s World Development Report argues that a more...

We use individual and aggregate data to ask how the Internet is changing the ideological segregation of the American electorate. Focusing on online news consumption, offline news consumption, and face-to-face social interactions, we define ideological segregation in each domain using standard...

We use individual and aggregate data to ask how the Internet is changing the ideological segregation of the American electorate. Focusing on online news consumption, offline news consumption, and face-to-face social interactions, we define ideological segregation in each domain using standard...

This paper, "Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers" to which these Appendices apply is available at the following URL: "http://ssrn.com/abstract=2191104" http://ssrn.com/abstract=2191104

We use data on US newspapers from the early 20th century to study the economic incentives that shape ideological diversity in the media. We show that households prefer like-minded news, and that newspapers seek both to cater to household tastes and to differentiate from their competitors. We...