Measuring How Much Judges Matter for Case Outcomes (with Ryan Copus). Forthcoming. Journal of Law and Courts. [ungated preprint]
Social Segregation, Inter-Group Contact and Discriminatory Policing (with Andrew T. Little). Forthcoming. Political Science Research and Methods. [ungated preprint]
Trading Diversity? Judicial Diversity and Case Outcomes in Federal Courts (with Ryan Copus and Paige Pellaton). 2025. American Political Science Review 119(2), pp. 832-846. [ungated preprint]
The Public Meeting Paradox: How NIMBY-Dominated Public Meetings Can Enable New Housing (with Allison K. Cuttner and B. Pablo Montagnes). 2024. Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy 5(1), pp. 1-28. [ungated preprint]
A Behavioural Theory of Discrimination in Policing (with Andrew T. Little). 2023. Economic Journal 133(655), pp. 2828-2843. [ungated preprint]
Going Into Government: How Hiring from Special Interests Reduces Their Influence (with Janna King Rezaee and Jonathan Colner). 2023. American Journal of Political Science 67(2), pp. 485-498. [ungated preprint]
Political Appointments and Outcomes in Federal District Courts (with Ryan Copus). 2022. Journal of Politics 84(2), pp. 908-922. [ungated preprint]
Kompromat Can Align Incentives But Ruin Reputations (with Andrew T. Little). 2022. American Journal of Political Science 66(4), pp. 871-884. [ungated preprint]
Biased Judgments without Biased Judges: How Legal Institutions Cause Errors. 2021. Journal of Politics 83(2), pp. 753-766. [ungated preprint]
Getting Their Way: Bias and Deference to Trial Courts. 2019. American Journal of Political Science 63(3), pp. 706-718. [ungated preprint]
Big Data, Machine Learning, and the Credibility Revolution in Empirical Legal Studies (with Ryan Copus and Hannah Laqueur). 2019. In Law as Data: Computation and the Future of Legal Analysis. Edited by Michael A. Livermore and Daniel N. Rockmore. Santa Fe, NM: SFI Press. [ungated preprint]
Measuring Panel Effects in Circuit Courts with Machine Learning (with Ryan Copus)
How Third Party Lawsuits Shape Judicial Review of Government Permit Approvals (with Christopher S. Elmendorf)
Recovering Random Assignment of Cases to Panels in the Federal Courts of Appeals (with Ryan Copus)
Strategic Discrimination in Elections (with Rachel Bernhard)
Political Accountability and Stereotyping in Prosecutions
Lurking Heterogeneity and Theoretical Inference in Political Science (with Rachel Bernhard and Ryan Copus)
The Persistence of Mafias (with Omar García-Ponce)
Measuring Panel Effects in Circuit Courts with Machine Learning (with Ryan Copus)
How Third Party Lawsuits Shape Judicial Review of Government Permit Approvals (with Christopher S. Elmendorf)
Recovering Random Assignment of Cases to Panels in the Federal Courts of Appeals (with Ryan Copus)
Voters sometimes express doubts about the electability of female or minority candidates—not out of personal prejudice, but because they believe others are prejudiced. While such concerns are well documented, it remains unclear whether and how these beliefs about others shape voting behavior. We present a formal model in which some voters are prejudiced and others are not. We show that non-prejudiced voters may treat candidates differently based on identity—not due to their own bias, but as a strategic response to the expected behavior of prejudiced voters. Surprisingly, this logic can sometimes advantage the very candidates typically assumed to be disadvantaged by voter prejudice. Our model reframes this “strategic discrimination” as a behavioral response to electoral context rather than a reflection of belief or preference alone, showing how rational decision-making under uncertainty can produce identity-based discrimination in elections.
Presented at EPSA 2025 in Madrid.
Political Accountability and Stereotyping in Prosecutions
Lurking Heterogeneity and Theoretical Inference in Political Science (with Rachel Bernhard and Ryan Copus)
The Persistence of Mafias (with Omar García-Ponce)