Journalism is widely believed to be crucial for holding elected officials accountable. At the same time economic theory has a hard time providing an instrumental explanation for the existence of "accountability journalism". According to the common Downsian reasoning, rational voters should not...

Journalism is widely believed to be crucial for holding elected officials accountable. At the same time economic theory has a hard time providing an instrumental explanation for the existence of “accountability journalism”. According to the common Downsian reasoning, rational voters should...

This paper provides a model of indirect lobbying where special interest groups try to influence policy outcomes by targeting voters. Specifically, competing lobbies engage in influence activities to affect the information that a (possibly biased) media outlet collects on the public value of...

We develop a model to study the political economy implications of information gatekeeping, i.e., a policy of granting access only to friendly media outlets and denying access to critical ones. While an incumbent prefers positive bias, granting access improves her re-election probability only if...

Welfare-state measures often tend to persist even when they seem to have become suboptimal due to changes in the economic environment. This paper proposes an information-based explanation for the persistence of the welfare state. I present a structural model where rationally inattentive voters...

Welfare-state measures often tend to persist even when they seem to have become suboptimal due to changes in the economic environment. This paper proposes an information-based explanation for the persistence of the welfare state. I present a structural model where rationally inattentive voters...

In the wake of growing awareness, decision makers anticipate that they might become aware of material possibilities and ideas that, in their current state of ignorance, are unimaginable. This anticipation manifests itself in their choice behavior. This paper models this awareness of unawareness...

Which factors explain voters' evaluations of policy responses to economic shocks? We explore this question in the context of mass preferences over the distribution of disaster relief and evaluate three theoretical arguments related to fairness norms that highlight affectedness, need, and...

Despite the likelihood of an individual vote changing the final outcome is close to zero and voting is not costless, we see significant voter turnout in elections. Voters are often guided by reasons other than changing the outcome, collectively called the ‘expressive motives’. This paper...