About me
I am a DPhil student in Economics at Nuffield college, Oxford. I am primarily interested in political influence and ideology. I research these topics using a mixture of Economic theory and empirical methods.
Working papers
Political Influence Through Microtargeting (with Sinem Hidir)
Abstract: Political actors routinely target ‘custom audiences’ on social media to influence elections. We model this process, focusing on the way in which it induces voters to learn about their own preferences. This differs from past literature, which has focused on party platforms and the effects of bias. We find that the optimal strategy given estimated parameters is to target groups favoring one’s opponents, providing a rational explanation for negative campaigning. More generally, log-concave cost of voting distributions can give rise to a non-convex set being targeted—weak supporters of the politician and strong supporters of their opponent. We also leverage this setup to provide a novel analysis of the effects of microtargeting on turnout, and find a sense in which lower costs of voting encourage negative campaigning.
Work in progress
Ideology: The Political Economy of Misspecified Models
I draw on the political theory literature on ideology to formalise a conception of it as models used to understand the political world. I make use of this framework to understand ideological shifts following the 2008 financial crisis.