Research

Job Market Paper

Disagreement Spillovers [pdf] 

Abstract: As US political party leaders increasingly take stances on both economic and cultural (i.e., social policy) issues, the economic views of opposite cultural groups are growing apart. This paper explores a novel explanation for this phenomenon. I propose a class of simple Bayesian models predicting that people will be distrustful of economic recommendations from culturally misaligned sources. I provide experimental evidence that adding social policy content to a policy message pushes those disagreeing with the social policy to disagree also with the economic content of the message. I show that my results suggest regular deviations from Bayesian explanations and propose a model of identity-based belief updating that can rationalize the main regularities found in the experiment. Finally, I shed light on opinion leaders' incentives to strengthen the association between social policy and economic policy views.


Published Research

Identity, Beliefs and Political Conflict, with Nicola Gennaioli and Guido Tabellini, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 136 (2021), 2371–2411 [pdf] [appendix

Abstract: We present a theory of identity politics that builds on two ideas. First, when policy conflict renders a certain social divide—economic or cultural—salient, a voter identifies with her economic or cultural group. Second, the voter slants her beliefs toward the stereotype of the group she identifies with. We obtain three implications. First, voters’ beliefs are polarized along the distinctive features of salient groups. Second, if the salience of cultural policies increases, cultural conflict rises, redistributive conflict falls, and polarization becomes more correlated across issues. Third, economic shocks hurting conservative voters may trigger a switch to cultural identity, causing these voters to demand less redistribution. We discuss U.S. survey evidence in light of these implications.


Working Papers

Monetary Policy and Communication with Strategic Financial Markets, with Ali Uppal, Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Economic Theory [pdf]

Abstract: We propose a novel model to study the consequences of including financial stability among the central bank's objectives when market players are strategic, and surprises compromise their stability. In this setup, central banks underreact to economic shocks, consistently with the Federal Reserve’s behavior during the 2023 banking crisis. Moreover, policymakers’ stability concerns bias investors' choices, inducing inefficiency. If the central bank has private information about its policy intentions, the equilibrium forward guidance entails an information loss, highlighting a trade-off between stabilizing markets through policy and communication. A "kitish" central banker, less concerned with financial stability, reduces these inefficiencies. With repeated interactions, the central bank might leverage communication to fully discipline markets.


Divide and Diverge: Polarization Incentives [pdf]

Abstract: We study polarization in a probabilistic voting model with aggregate shocks and a decreasing marginal utility from office rents. In equilibrium, parties offer different policies, despite being rent-motivated and ex-ante identical from the point of view of voters. When candidates compete on a single policy issue, parties' equilibrium payoffs increase in voter polarization, even when the change is driven by the supporters of the opposite party becoming more extreme. With multiple policy issues, parties benefit if the society is split into two factions and the ideological cohesion within such factions increases.  We connect our results to empirical evidence on polarizing political communication, party identity, and zero-sum thinking, and find that polarization could be reduced by intervening on the electoral rule.


The Disagreement Dividend [pdf]

Abstract: We study how disagreement influences team performance in a dynamic game with positive production externalities. Players can hold different views about the productivity of the available production technologies. This disagreement results in different technology and effort choices"optimistic" views induce higher effort than "skeptical" views. Views are changed when falsified by evidence. With a single technology available, optimists exert more effort early on if the team also includes skeptics. With sufficiently strong externalities, a disagreeing team produces, on average, more than any like-minded team. With multiple technologies, disagreement over which technology works best motivates everyone to exert more effort.


In Progress

Persuasion on TV with Guido Tabellini

Problem Solving with Aram Grigoryan