Category Archives: Economics of Elections

A Capital Challenge

Posted on March 15, 2010 by andrewleigh

Watching the attempts of the red-shirts to change the Thai government by bringing Bangkok to a standstill, I was reminded of the observation that Alberto Alesina and Ed Glaeser make in their book Fighting Poverty. In countries where the largest … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Elections | 3 Comments

The Size of Nations

Posted on September 30, 2009 by andrewleigh

My Wryside Economics talk on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters program tomorrow is on “The Size of Nations”, a terrific book by Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore, which posits that country size is a tradeoff between the economic benefits of … Continue reading →

Posted in Coming Events, Economics of Elections, Trade & Development | 4 Comments

Randomised political trials, drugs and crime

Posted on September 28, 2009 by andrewleigh

Two interesting new economics papers from the latest NBER batch. Party Affiliation, Partisanship, and Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment (ungated unstable link) Alan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber & Ebonya Washington Political partisanship is strongly correlated with attitudes and behavior, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Elections, Law, Randomisation | 1 Comment

On bleeding and leading

Posted on August 25, 2009 by andrewleigh

My AFR oped today asks: does it matter for economic policy which individual leads a particular political party? The conclusion: not in most cases. Of course, a 750-word piece can only do justice to one strand of a vast literature. … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Elections | Comments Off on On bleeding and leading

Babies at the Ballot Box

Posted on August 5, 2009 by andrewleigh

Voters may say that baby-faced pollies look less competent, but they still seem to vote for them. From a new Finnish study: Faces of Politicians: Babyfacedness Predicts Inferred Competence but Not Electoral Success Panu Poutvaara, Henrik Jordahl and Niclas Berggren … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Elections | 1 Comment

A statistical gripe

Posted on May 4, 2009 by andrewleigh

Statistics are great tools, so long as you don’t lie about them. I just came across a number that seems to have taken hold in international circles, which is the “Share of individuals that cast a ballot during an election, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Elections | 2 Comments