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Democrats and Republicans have seemed to grow apart in the past three decades. Since the United States as we know it today is undeniably bipartisan, this phenomenon would not appear as a surprise to most. However, there are triggers which…
Our infrastructure systems enable our well-being by allowing us to move, store, and transform materials and information given considerable social and environmental variation. Critically, this ability is shaped by the degree to which society…
In certain parliamentary democracies, there are two major parties that move in and out of power every few elections, and a third minority party that essentially never governs. We present a simple model to account for this phenomenon, in…
Recent political campaigns have demonstrated how technologies are used to boost election outcomes by microtargeting voters. We propose and analyze a framework which analyzes how political activists use technologies to target voters. Voters…
Using the recently introduced declination function, we estimate the net number of seats won in the US House of Representatives due to asymmetries in vote distributions. Such asymmetries can arise from combinations of partisan gerrymandering…
This paper provides a novel summary measure of ideological polarization in the American public based on the joint distribution of survey responses. Intuitively, polarization is maximized when views are concentrated at opposing extremes with…
How could LLMs influence our democracy? We investigate LLMs' political leanings and the potential influence of LLMs on voters by conducting multiple experiments in a U.S. presidential election context. Through a voting simulation, we first…
The outcome of elections is strongly dependent on the districting choices, making thus possible (and frequent) the gerrymandering phenomenon, i.e.\ politicians suitably changing the shape of electoral districts in order to win the…
It is demonstrated that the US economy has on the long-term in reality been governed by the Keynesian approach to economics independent of the current official economical policy. This is done by calculating the two-point correlation…
Income inequality is a distributional phenomenon. This paper examines the impact of U.S governor's party allegiance (Republican vs Democrat) on ethnic wage gap. A descriptive analysis of the distribution of yearly earnings of Whites and…
A common assumption of political economy is that profit rates across firms or sectors tend to uniformity, and often models are formulated in which this tendency is assumed to have been realised. But in reality this tendency is never…
Climate policy has become increasingly politicized in many countries including the US, with some political parties unwilling to pursue strong measures. Therefore, to be successful in mitigation, climate policies must be politically…
Precise information is essential for making good policies, especially those regarding reform decisions. However, decision-makers may hesitate to gather such information if certain decisions could have negative impacts on their future…
This paper offers a strategic rationale for zero-sum thinking in elections. We show that asymmetric information and distributional considerations together make voters wary of policies supported by others. This force impels a majority of…
The outcome of an election depends not only on which candidate is more popular, but also on how many of their voters actually turn out to vote. Here we consider a simple model in which voters abstain from voting if they think their vote…
There are clear benefits associated with a particular consumer choice for many current markets. For example, as we consider here, some products might carry environmental or `green' benefits. Some consumers might value these benefits while…
Recent surveys have shown that an increasing portion of the US public believes the two major US parties adequately represent the US public opinion and think additional parties are needed. However, there are high barriers for third parties…
Every representative democracy must specify a mechanism under which voters choose their representatives. The most common mechanism in the United States -- Winner takes all single-member districts -- both enables substantial partisan…
We study the problem of a partisan gerrymanderer who assigns voters to equipopulous districts so as to maximize his party's expected seat share. The designer faces both aggregate uncertainty (how many votes his party will receive) and…
In democracies, major policy decisions typically require some form of majority or consensus, so elites must secure mass support to govern. Historically, elites could shape support only through limited instruments like schooling and mass…