This paper investigates the private returns to colonial offices and how these affect longterm economic and political outcomes across sub-national provinces in Peru. To estimate the private returns to office I use a unique dataset of the prices at which colonial government positions were auctioned off by the Spanish Crown between 1674 and 1751. I first show how the gap between the prices paid fo...

We argue that, since activities providing political information are complementary with leisure, increased labor market activity should lower voter turnout, doing so least in elections with ubiquitous information. Using county-level data, we find that increased wages and employment: reduce gubernatorial turnout; do not affect Presidential turnout; and raise the share of persons casting a Preside...

We examine how local political corruption affects firm innovation in the United States. We find that firms located in more corrupt districts are less innovative, as measured by their patenting activities. We identify two possible economic channels through which corruption may affect innovation: a disincentive effect and a culture effect. We show that the negative impact of corruption on innovat...

This paper outlines a political theory of digital games using conceptual resources drawn from the history of art. Beginning with a close reading of a single game—Memory of a Broken Dimension—the author develops his theoretical concerns through a contrast between Ian Bogost’s theory or procedural representation and a theoretical framework focused on the politics of skill acquisition process, emb...

Previous research finds that voting is a socially stressful activity associated with increases in cortisol levels. Here we extend this research by investigating whether different voting modalities have differential effects on the stress response to voting. Results from a field experiment conducted during the 2012 presidential elections strongly suggest that traditional "at the polls" voting is ...

Models of voter choice frequently assume voters behave as independent actors who make decisions in a social vacuum. Recent work has demonstrated that social connections play a formative role in the decision to turnout to vote, to take expressive political action, and in the formation of political identity. Yet, no work has examined how social connections influence voters’ choices in an election...