If popular online platforms systematically expose their users to partisan and unreliable news, they could potentially contribute to societal issues such as rising political polarization1,2. This concern is central to the 'echo chamber'3-5 and 'filter bubble'6,7 debates, which critique the roles… read more about this publication »
Can a poorer individual who has a particular talent realistically hope to move up in life because they have this particular talent? This proposition is put to the test by interviewing more than 800 young individuals in rural and urban Bihar and Delhi. Findings show that these individuals have had… read more about this publication »
A growing body of evidence attests that legislators are sometimes responsive to the policy preferences of citizens in single-party regimes, yet debate surrounds the mechanisms driving this relationship. We experimentally test two potential responsiveness mechanisms - elections versus mandates from… read more about this publication »
Public health requires collective action-the public best addresses health crises when individuals engage in prosocial behaviors. Failure to do so can have dire societal and economic consequences. This was made clear by the disjointed, politicized response to COVID-19 in the United States. Perhaps… read more about this publication »
Politics and science have become increasingly intertwined. Salient scientific issues, such as climate change, evolution, and stem-cell research, become politicized, pitting partisans against one another. This creates a challenge of how to effectively communicate on such issues. Recent work… read more about this publication »
Vietnam in 2022 was beset with numerous dramatic political developments and diplomatic uncertainties but also recorded significant economic achievements. Changes in the top echelons of power took place in an unprecedented manner due to the intensifying anticorruption campaign, exposing the… read more about this publication »
Spatial, that is, geographic inequalities are growing in India and other countries. Some countries are better provided with services, infrastructure, and earning opportunities. States matter and the urban–rural difference is salient to these distinctions. However, locating the geographies of… read more about this publication »
The Japanese public has been assumed to possess a deeply ingrained aversion toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons. We employ a survey experiment to ascertain whether this aversion is unconditional or may erode in the face of hypothetical deterioration in Japan's security situation, and in… read more about this publication »
Although polling is not irredeemably broken, changes in technology and society create challenges that, if not addressed well, can threaten the quality of election polls and other important surveys on topics such as the economy. This essay describes some of these challenges and recommends… read more about this publication »
Conspiratorial beliefs can endanger individuals and societies by increasing the likelihood of harmful behaviors such as the flouting of public health guidelines. While scholars have identified various correlates of conspiracy beliefs, one factor that has received scant attention is depressive… read more about this publication »
Though realistically modeling this 'governance cycle' is beyond the scope of traditional formal analysis, this book attacks the problem computationally in two ways. read more about this publication »
How much do electoral institutions matter for the rise of populist parties? Evidence on this question is mixed, with some scholars arguing that the role of electoral rules is small. We provide new evidence for the impact of electoral system change. The UK's adoption of a proportional electoral… read more about this publication »
Will the fast expansion of cash-based programming in poor countries increase international migration? Theoretically, cash transfers may deter migration by increasing its opportunity cost or favor migration by re-laxing liquidity, credit, and risk constraints. This paper evaluates the impact of a… read more about this publication »
This assessment of the “policy-academy” gap is part of a special forum stimulated by Michael Desch’s book, Cult of the Irrelevant. Those who write about the academy–policy gap worry that the gap is too narrow, resulting in ethical compromise, or too wide, resulting in marginalization of key… read more about this publication »
Rising costs and challenges of in-person interviewing have prompted major surveys to consider moving online and conducting live web-based video interviews. In this paper, we evaluate video mode effects using a two-wave experimental design in which respondents were randomized to either an… read more about this publication »
It is well-known that the more educated people are, the more liberal views they tend to express. However, it is unclear whether this is due to college attendance itself or because those who go to college differ from those who do not in ways (directly or indirectly) related to their later political… read more about this publication »
To what extent has chronic poverty increased during the pandemic? In July and August 2021, we revisited seven villages of southern Rajasthan (India), where we had studied household poverty dynamics in 2002. We find that in the two decades before the pandemic (2002–2020), people’s structural… read more about this publication »