Political Economy, Liberal Democracy, Economic Development

1. IDENTITY AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

• Persecution and Escape: High Skilled Emigration from Nazi Germany (with Sascha Becker, V. Lindenthal and Fabian Waldinger). American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (2024). (Lead Article.)

Throughout history, academics were persecuted because of their ethnicity, political views, or religion. Possibly, the most prominent example is the persecution of Jewish academics in Nazi Germany. Academics of Jewish origin in Weimar Germany were some of the greatest scientific luminaries of the 20th century from Albert Einstein, John von Neumann and Max Born to Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno. In this paper, we study the role of professional networks and their social capital in helping German Jewish academics escape through emigration. In doing so, we provide the first  comprehensive documentation of the fate of academics of Jewish origin during the Nazi period from the unknown research associate to the Nobel laureate! 

• Persecution, pogroms and Genocide: A conceptual framework and new evidence (with S. Becker and I. Yotzov). 2022. Explorations in Economic History. (Lead Article)

• Erasing Ethnicity? Propaganda and Nation Building in Rwanda (with Arthur Blouin). Journal of Political Economy (2019)

This paper examines whether propaganda broadcast over radio helped to change interethnic attitudes in postgenocide Rwanda. Results of lab-in-the-field experiments show that individuals exposed to government propaganda  have lower salience of ethnicity, have increased interethnic trust, and show more willingness to interact face-to-face with members of another ethnic group. The findings provide some of the first quantitative evidence that the salience of ethnic identity can be manipulated by governments.

• Political Economy of Liberal Democracy (with Dani Rodrik). (2020) Economic Journal

The Puzzle of Liberal Democracy (with Dani Rodrik) 2015. Project Syndicate

The paper highlights a central puzzle: Why do many democracies with free elections fail to protect civil liberties and minority rights? While political rights (elections) have expanded globally, liberal democracy remains rare. The puzzle arises because civil rights—unlike political or property rights—primarily benefit minorities, who lack the political power to secure them. Majorities may support elections for self-interested reasons but have little incentive to defend freedoms that constrain their own power. As a result, societies often adopt electoral democracy without adopting liberal protections, producing the widespread phenomenon of illiberal democracy.

Economic interests, worldviews, and identities: Theory and evidence on ideational politics. (with Elliott Ash and Dani Rodrik). 2021. NBER Working Paper.

2. POLITICAL ECONOMY OF POLICYMAKING

• Policy Gambles (with Sumon Majumdar) (2004). American Economic Review

Why do elected governments sometimes make reckless policy bets or cling to clearly failing policies? The paper asks how the desire to look competent in voters’ eyes shapes when politicians try bold reforms and when they refuse to admit mistakes. The paper throws light on the puzzle of why leaders may launch reforms they privately expect to fail, or keep bad policies alive.

• Redistributive Promises and the Adoption of Economic Reform (with Sanjay Jain) (2003). American Economic Review

• Democracy, Visibility and Public Good Provision (with Anandi Mani). 2007. Journal of Development Economics

Why are governments so much better at preventing famines than malnutrition - even in countries with poor state capacity? This paper examines the role of visibility in influencing government resource allocation across  public goods. We show that a “visibility effect” distorts governmental resource allocation such that it helps explain why governments neglect provision of essential public goods, despite their considerable benefits.

Walk the line: Conflict, state capacity and the political dynamics of reform.  (with S. Jain and S. Majumdar), 2015. Journal of Development Economics, 111, pp.150-166.

Politics, Information and the Urban Bias (with A Mani and S. Majumdar). Journal of Development Economics

3. GLOBALIZATION & POLICYMAKING

•  In search of the holy grail: policy convergence, experimentation, and economic performance. (with Dani Rodrik)  American Economic Review

The paper asks why do countries all chase the same “best-practice” policies? Is it because they actually have learnt the right lessons from the past or not? What are the long term implications of this for economic growth?

• Globalization and the "Confidence Game" (2006). Journal of International Economics

• Globalization and the (In)Discipling of Nations (with Arthur Blouin and Sayantan Ghosal). 2024. Journal of Comparative Economics

4. CULTURE & BEHAVIORAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

• Mistaking "Noise" for Bias: Victimhood and Hutu-Tutsi Reconciliation in East Africa (with Arthur Blouin). 2022. Journal of Development Economics

• The Persistence of Partisanship: Evidence from 9/11 (with Ethan Kaplan). University of Maryland Working Paper

• The Meritocratic Illusion: Inequality and the Cognitive Basis for Redistribution (with A. Blouin, A.Mani, D. Sgroi). Oxford Economic Papers