The income gradient in political participation is a widely accepted stylized fact. This article asks how income effects on political involvement unfold over time. Using nine panel datasets from six countries, it analyzes whether income changes have short-term effects on political involvement,...

This paper develops a theoretical framework that makes predictions on (a) the conditions under which a populist party decides to run and the policy position it takes and (b) voters' response under different electoral systems. We test these predictions using data on Italian municipal elections...

We investigate the relationship between political attitudes and prosociality in a survey of a representative sample of the U.S. population during the first summer of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that an experimental measure of prosociality correlates positively with adherence to protective...

We propose that false beliefs about the own current economic status are an important factor for explaining populist attitudes. Along with the subjects' receptiveness to right-wing populism, we elicit their perceived relative income positions in a representative survey of German households. We...

Does poor air quality affect decision-making? We study this question based on elections, in which millions of people decide on the same issue on the same day in different locations. We use county-level data from 64 federal and state elections in Germany over a nineteen-year period and exploit...

Do people only reject interference and keep control in order to affect the outcome? We find that 20% of subjects reject unrequired help and insist on their solution to a problem – although doing so is costly and does not change the result. We tease out the motives by varying the information...

We estimate the relationship between international youth and professional tennis rankings. We find no difference between the predictiveness of rankings from age 14 & Under versus age 16 & Under competitions. The most persistent predictor of professional success is beating older top ranked...

We investigate the effects of group identity on hiring decisions with adverse selection problems. We run a laboratory experiment in which employers cannot observe a worker's ability nor verify the veracity of the ability the worker claims to have. We evaluate whether sharing an identity results...

We analyze the offering, asking, and granting of help or other benefits as a three-stage game with bilateral private information between a person in need of help and a potential help-giver. Asking entails the risk of rejection, which can be painful: since unawareness of the need can no longer be...

When groups face difficult problems, the voice of experts may be lost in the noise of others' contributions. We present results from a 'naturally noisy' setting, a large first-year undergraduate class, in which the 'expert's voice is lost' to such a degree that it is in fact optimal for all...