Research

 

My work mostly focuses on the economic underpinnings of democracy and elections, although I’m usually interested in anything with promising data.  Here’s a simple list of my working papers, publications and and on-going projects.

Working papers: 

  • Do Voters Respond to the Economy or to News Reporting on the Economy?  With Michael Peress. September 2021.
  • The Material Issues Vote: Partisan Asymmetry in Electoral Accountability for the Economy. With Cassandra Grafstrom. Working Paper. July 2019. :: pdf :: appendix.
  • Downward Class Mobility and Support for Far-Right Parties.  With Alan Jacobs.  November 2021.
  • Who Delivers? Pledge-keeping as Coalition Bargaining. With Jochen Rehmert and Petra Schleiter. June 2020.
  • How Bad Can It Get? Partisan Polarization and Democratic Decision Making. With Kasia Nalewajko.  October 2021.
  • Post-material Voting and the Economic Cycle.  With Tarik Abou-Chadi.  May 2021.
  • Real-Time vs Reality: Economic Data Vintages and Government Approval. With Arndt Leininger. October 2021.
  • The Long Shadow of the Opposition: Electoral Benchmarking against Previous Governments.  With Liam McGrath.  Working paper. January 2018. :: pdf

Journal articles: 

  • Coalition Inclusion Probabilities: A Party-Strategic Measure for Predicting Policy and Politics.  With Matthias Orlowski and Jochen Rehmert.  Political Science Research and Methods. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2021.75 :: FirstView.
  • Electoral Competitiveness and Responsiveness: Rational Anticipation in the EU Council. With Fabio Franchino and Christopher Wratil. Journal of European Public Policy 29(1):42-60.  https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2021.1991986 :: link.
  • A Länder-Based Forecast of the 2021 German Bundestag Election. PS: Political Science & Politics 55(1):450-453.  2022. https:://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096521000974 :: link.
  • Does the Media Cover the Economy Accurately? Evidence from Sixteen Developed Democracies. With Michael Peress. Quarterly Journal of Political Science. 16(1):1-33. 2021. doi: 10.1561/100.000190982021 :: preprint :: link  :: appendix :: data
  • Coalition Prospects and Policy Change: An Application to the Environment.  With Jochen Rehmert.  Legistlative Studies Quarterly. 2020. doi: 10.1111/lsq.12273. :: preprint :: EarlyView :: data
  • The Two-step Model of Clustered Democratization. With Christian Houle. Journal of Conflict Resolution. 63(10):2421-2437. 2019 :: link
  • Benchmarking across Borders:  An Update and Response.  With Michael Peress. British Journal of Political Science. 2019. doi:10.1017/S0007123418000625 :: FirstView :: preprint :: data
  • A Länder-based Forecast of the 2017 German Bundestag Election.  With Arndt Leininger.  PS: Political Science & Politics 50(3):689-692. July 2017. (March forecast). doi: 10.1017/S1049096517000427  :: original :: corrected :: data
  • A Länderbasierte Prognose zur Bundestagswahl 2017.  With Arndt Leininger.  Politische Vierteljahresscrift 58(3): 407-417. 2017. :: pdf :: ard :: faz :: data
  • It’s not easy being green: Why voters punish parties for environmental policies during downturns.  With Tarik Abou Chadi.  Electoral Studies 45(February): 201-207. 2017. doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2016.10.009 :: pdf
  • Diffusion or Confusion? Clustered Shocks and the Conditional Diffusion of Democracy. With Christian Houle and Jun Xiang. International Organization 70(4): 687-726. 2016. doi: 10.1017/S002081831600028X :: pdf ::  appendix  :: data
  • A Predictive Test of Voters’ Economic Benchmarking: The 2013 German Bundestag Election. With Arndt Leininger. German Politics 25(1):106-130. 2016. doi: 10.1080/09644008.2015.1129531 :: pdf :: data
  • Vintage Errors: Do Real-Time Economic Data Improve Election Forecasts? With Arndt Leininger. Research & Politics, July-September: 1-11. 2015. doi: 10.1177/2053168015589624 :: pdf :: data
  • A Cross-National Measure of Electoral Competitiveness. With Rene Lindstaedt. Political Analysis 23(2): 242-253. 2015. doi: 10.1093/pan/mpv001 :: pdf :: appendix :: data
  • Benchmarking across Borders: Electoral Accountability and the Necessity of Comparison. With Michael Peress. American Political Science Review 106(3): 661-84. 2012. :: pdf :: appendix :: data
    Winner of the GESIS Klingemann Prize for the Best CSES Scholarship.
  • Performance Pressure: Patterns of Partisanship and the Economic Vote. With Christopher Wlezien. European Journal of Political Research 50(3):365-94. 2011.  :: pdf :: data
    Winner of Best Paper Award, APSA section on European Politics & Society.
  • Counting Calories: Democracy and Distribution in the Developing World. With Lisa Blaydes. International studies Quarterly 55(4). 2011. :: pdf :: data
  • Partisan Waves: International Business Cycles and Electoral Choice. American Journal of Political Science 53(4): 950-70. 2009. :: pdf
  • Electoral Systems and Real Prices: Panel Evidence for the OECD Countries 1970-2000. With Eric C.C. Chang and Ronald Rogowski. British Journal of Political Science 38(4): 739-51. 2008. ::  pdf
  • How Domestic Is Domestic Politics? Globalization and Elections. Annual Review of Political Science 10: 341-62. 2007. :: pdf
  • Trade and the Timing of Elections. British Journal of Political Science 36(3): 437-57. 2006. :: pdf :: data
  • Who Surfs, Who Manipulates? The Determinants of Opportunistic Election Timing and Electorally Motivated Economic Intervention. American Political Science Review 99(1): 17-28. 2005. :: pdf

     

  • Majoritarian Electoral Systems and Consumer Power: Price-Level Evidence from the OECD Countries. With Ronald Rogowski. American Journal of Political Science 46(3): 526-39. 2002. :: pdf :: data

Books: 

Book Cover: Electoral Systems and the Balance of Consumer-Producer Power

Electoral Systems and the Balance of Consumer-Producer Power. With Eric C.C. Chang, Drew Linzerand Ronald Rogowski. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Investigates the effects of electoral systems on the relative influence of various interests within society. Rogowski & Kayser’s (2002) extension of the classic Stigler-Peltzman model of regulation to include explicit electoral institutions implies that majoritarian electoral arrangements should empower consumers relative to producers. This manuscript, employing real price levels as a proxy for consumer power, rigorously establishes this proposition over time, within the OECD, and across a large sample of developing countries. Majoritarian electoral arrangements depress real prices by approximately ten percent, all else equal. Additional theoretical implications about institutional reform and electoral competitiveness are also developed. :: more

Governance Indicators: Approaches, Progress, Promise. Helmut K. Anheier, Matthias Haber and Mark A. Kayser, eds.  Oxford University Press, 2018.

Since the World Bank Institute launched the Worldwide Governance Indicators in the late 1990s, the governance indicators field has flourished and experienced significant advances in terms of methodology, data coverage and quality, and policy relevance. Other major initiatives have added to a momentum that propelled research on governance indicators seen in few other academic fields in the economic and social sciences. Given these developments and the prominence and policy relevance the field of governance indicator research has achieved, the time is ripe to take stock and ask what has been accomplished, what the shortcomings and potentials might be, and what steps present themselves as a way forward. :: more

Book Chapters:

  • Measuring Governance: An Assessment of the Research Challenges. Chapter 11 in Governance Indicators: Approaches, Progress, Promise.  Oxford University Press. 2018. :: pdf
  • The Buck Stops over There? Globalization and Electoral Accountability. With Michael Peress. Chapter 5 in Globalization and Domestic Politics. Jack Vowles & Georgios Xezonakis, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CSES series. 2016. :: pdf
  • The Elusive Economic Vote.  Chapter 7 in Comparing Democracies 4: Elections and Voting in a Changing World. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris, eds. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 2014. :: pdf
  • Introducing a New Generation of Governance Indicators. With Helmut Anheier and Piero Stanig. In The Governance Report 2013. Hertie School of Governance, ed. Chapter 5, pp. 117-148. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013. :: pdf
  • Governance Indicators: Some Proposals. With Piero Stanig. Chapter 9 in Governance Challenges and Innovations: Financial and Fiscal Governance. Helmut K. Anheier and Regina A. List, pp. 189-220. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013. :: pdf

Dormant:

  • Conflict by Design: Domestic Institutions and International Conflict. With Taehee Whang. 2009. :: pdf

     

  • How Geographic Concentration Affects Industrial Influence: Evidence from US Data. 1999. With Ronald Rogowski and Daniel Kotin. :: pdf