Publications

Democratic deconsolidation revisited: Young Europeans are not dissatisfied with democracy
Research & Politics
PDF (open-access) | Data & Code | Show BibTex citation

How Many People Live in Political Bubbles on Social Media? Evidence from Linked Survey and Twitter Data
with Gregory Eady, Jonathan Nagler, Andrew Guess, and Joshua Tucker
Sage Open
PDF (open-access) | Summaries: Pacific Standard, Main chart | Show BibTex citation

The Happiness Gap in Eastern Europe
with Simeon Djankov and Elena Nikolova
Journal of Comparative Economics
PDF | Summary: Financial Times blog | Ungated SSRN & OSF pre-prints | Show BibTex citation

Working papers

Learning About Income Inequality: What is the Impact of Information on Preferences for Redistribution?
Ungated SSRN pre-print | Press reactions: The Economist, Bloomberg

Non-peer reviewed research

Higher Wages for Low-Income Workers Lead to Higher Productivity
with Justin Wolfers. Reproduced in Newsweek
Press reactions: The Atlantic, Vox, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg.

Reducing Government Debt Ratios in an Era of Low Growth
with Paolo Mauro. Peterson Institute Policy Brief.
Press reactions: Wall Street Journal.

Fiscal Tightening and Economic Growth
with Paolo Mauro, Peterson Institute Policy Brief
Summary: VoxEu.org

I study how people with political objectives convey economic data, compete for office, and how they apply persuasion strategies in an environment where much of the electorate does not seek – or even actively avoids – direct exposure to political messages.

Politics now permeates into citizens’ screens, pockets, and any room where people carry cell phones. Many observers are concerned that inflammatory news, permanent campaigning, populist rhetoric, and echo chambers are eroding democracy. My published work shows that satisfaction with democracy has not decreased over the last decade, and other recent research challenges some of the received wisdom about “media bubbles.”

My goal is to improve our understanding of the connection between politics and economics through rigorous research. Before joining NYU, I have worked on projects related to discrimination, inclusive capitalism, and behavioral economics. Most of that work was done at MIT and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Teaching. As a Data Fellow at NYU, I have advised undergraduate students on research design, tidying data, and interpreting empirical results. I strive to guide students to become clear communicators – big data is no excuse for cryptic writing or speaking. Earlier, I was a Teaching Fellow in the economics department at Harvard, and have taught courses covering topics including model selection, false discovery rates, classification and decision trees, the bootstrap and cross-validation.

Education. I am a graduate of the University of Chicago and of Harvard University.