Alberto Simpser

Academic Publications

 

• Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections. 2013. Cambridge University Press. Series on the Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions

 

 

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• Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes. 2014. Coedited with Tom Ginsburg. Cambridge University Press. Series on Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy.

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• Interacting as Equals: How Contact Can Promote Tolerance Among Opposing Partisans, with Kenneth Greene, Erin Rossiter, and Enrique Seira, Nature Human Behavior, accepted for publication.

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• Corruption, Norms, and the Law, in Menard and Shirley, eds., Handbook of New Institutional Economics, Springer Nature, forthcoming.

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• Online Political Information: Facebook Ads, Electorate Saturation, and Electoral Accountability in Mexico, with José Ramón Enríquez, Horacio Larreguy, and John Marshall, Journal of the European Economic Association, 2024.

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• Voting with One's Neighbors: Evidence from Migration within Mexico, with Frederico Finan and Enrique Seira, Journal of Public Economics, 2021.​​

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• Do you have COVID-19? How to increase the use of contact tracing apps, with Déborah Martínez V., Cristina Parilli, Ana María Rojas M., and Carlos Scartascini, PLoS ONE, 2021.

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• Let’s (not) get together! The role of social norms on social distancing during COVID-19, with Carlos Scartascini, Déborah Martínez, and Cristina Parilli, PLoS ONE, 2021.

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• The Political Economy of Carbon Pricing: Lessons from the Mexican Carbon Tax Experience for the Mexican Cap-and-Trade System, with Juan Carlos Belausteguigoitia and Vidal Romero in Simone Lucatello, ed., Towards an Emissions Trading System in Mexico: Rationale, Governance, and Design Perspectives, Springer Climate Series, Springer Nature, 2021.

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• The Quality of Vote Tallies: Causes and Consequences, with Cristian Challú and Enrique Seira, American Political Science Review, 2020.

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• The Culture of Corruption Across Generations: an Empirical Study of Intergenerational Bribery Attitudes Behavior, Journal of Politics, 2020.

  • Recipient of SAGE Best Paper Award, Comparative Politics Section, American Political Science Association (formerly titled: "Intergenerational Persistence of Attitudes Toward Corruption.")

  • Coverage in SAGE connection.

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• Electoral Handouts and Electoral Integrity during Mexico’s 2018 Elections, with Kenneth Greene, Política y Gobierno, 2020.

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• Dead but not Gone: Contemporary Legacies of Communism, Imperialism, and Authoritarianism, with Dan Slater and Jason Wittenberg, Annual Review of Political Science. 2018.

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• Circles of Trust: A Proposal for Better Migrant Screening, with Tom Ginsburg, Journal of Legal Studies. 2018.

  • Coverage in Vox.

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• When the (Facebook) Status and the (Socioeconomic) Status Went down to the Street: Communications, Political Involvement and the Climate of Opinion in the Summer 2011 Protest, with Jacob Shamir and Yossi David, Megamot, 1 (July), 2017.

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• Election Rigging, entry in SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Behavior. 2017.

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• Electoral Clientelism and Vote Buying in Mexico (in Spanish), in Ugalde and Hernández Quintana, eds., Fortalezas y Debilidades del Sistema Electoral Mexicano 1990-2015. 2017.   

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• The Political Economy of Social Spending by Local Government: A Study of the 3x1 Program for Migrants in Mexico, with L. Duquette-Rury, J.A. Hernández-Company, and J.F. Ibarra, Latin American Research Review, 51(1), 2016.

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• Electoral Manipulation as Bureaucratic Control, with Scott Gehlbach, American Journal of Political Science, 59(1), 2015.

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• Does Electoral Manipulation Discourage Voter Turnout?, Journal of Politics 74:3, 2012.

  • Supplementary materials.

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• Can International Election Monitoring Harm Governance?, with Daniela Donno, Journal of Politics 74:2, 2012.

  • Supplementary materials.

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• Comparing the Accuracy of RDD Telephone Surveys and Internet Surveys Conducted with Probability and Non-Probability Samples, with Yager, Krosnick, and others, Political Opinion Quarterly 75:4, 2011.

  • Supplementary materials.

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• Unintended Consequences of Election Monitoring, in Election Fraud: Detecting and Deterring Electoral Manipulation, edited by Alvarez, Hall, and Hyde, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

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Research in Progress

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• The central role of social dynamics in nudging social norms for collective health: Evidence on mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Barranquilla, with Deborah Martinez, Ana Maria Rojas, and Carlos Scartascini (under review).​

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• Confounding, Spillovers and Interactions Influence Estimates of Social Distancing Policy Effects, with José Ramón Enríquez and Horacio Larreguy.

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• Donating Time for Democracy: A Field Experimental Study on Citizen Provision of Political Public Goods, with Andrei Gomberg, Ulrike Malmendier, and Enrique Seira.

  • Recipient of JPAL grant​, Governance Initiative. Link to Project Summary.​​​

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• When do Sensitive Survey Questions Elicit Truthful Answers? Theory and Evidence with Application to the RRT and List Experiment ​

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• Climate of Opinion as a Driver of Collective Action: Evidence from the 2011 Israeli Social Protest Movement, with Yossi David and Jacob Shamir.

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• Who Has a Use for the Law? A Theory of the Political Roots of the Rule of Law, with César Martinelli and Andrei Gomberg.

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Media and Opinion

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• The impact of human error in vote tallies: evidence from Mexico (with Cristian Challú and Enrique Seira), VoxDev - Institutions and Political Economy, 2021. 
   

• Interviewed on the topic of corruption for El Tiempo, Bogotá, Colombia (video, in Spanish), 2017. 

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• "A Fresh Solution to the Immigrant and Refugee Vetting Problem," Vox, 2017.

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• "Tracking the Provenance of Corruption," interview in SAGE Social Science Space and SAGE Connection, 2014.
   

• "Cinco Millones de Votos, ¿Comprados?" Reforma, Enfoque (Sunday magazine), 2012 (in Spanish).

 

• "Could the PRI have bought its electoral result in the 2012 Mexican election?" in The Monkey Cage, 2012.

 

• "No Choice," interview in Esquire Magazine, Russia, 2011 (in Russian).

 

• "What's the Big Idea? If you're going to rig an election, cheat big," The Washington Post, Sunday Outlook, 2009.

 

SSRN page (click here)

 

Google Scholar page (click here)

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