4814
WW Posvar Hall
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Ph: (412) 648-7266
Fax: (412) 648-7277 |
My research examines how strategic incentives
arising from political power and asymmetric information influence
representation and policy outcomes. I use laboratory experiments to
investigate fundamental questions about the nature of democratic
accountability and use observational data to conduct novel tests of
theories of political parties and legislative behavior.
With respect to democratic accountability, my work has shown the
substantial effects of electoral delegation on the provision of
collective goods and a strong behavioral tendency of voters to reward
or punish politicians for performance, even when they have incentives
to base their decisions on other factors. In the field of
congressional politics, my work has contributed to our understanding of
the way in which members of Congress
introduce and position legislation, why it sometimes takes Congress a
long time to complete appropriations bills, and how the reputations of
political
parties evolve and affect congressional elections.
Current projects include NSF-funded experiments (with Kristin Kanthak,
Pittsburgh) that explore behavioral differences between men and women
in their decisions to run for office, experiments (with William
Minozzi, OSU) investigating how competition affects strategic
communication between informed experts and less-informed
decision-makers, and the analysis of survey data to understand
heterogeneity in and the evolution of the public's perceptions of
political parties.
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