Academic Publications
“Community interventions in the administration of justice,” with Carlo Horz. Forthcoming in American Journal of Political Science.
”Guilt and Guilty Pleas,” with Andrew Little. Forthcoming in American Political Science Review.
“Access to Justice in Revenue-Seeking Legal Institutions.” 2023. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 35(2): 75--99.
- winner, Elinor Ostrom Prize for the “Best Article Published in the Journal of Theoretical Politics 2022-23.”
“Political Interventions in the Administration of Justice,” with Carlo Horz. 2023. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 18(1):5-38.
“Justice for Sale: Political Crises and Legal Development.” 2021. Political Science Research and Methods, 7(4): 779-799.
“Causes, Theories, and the Past in Political Science,” with Sanford Gordon. 2020. Public Choice, 185(3): 315-333.
“The Birth of Pork: Local appropriations in America’s first century,” with Sanford Gordon. 2018. American Political Science Review. 112(3): 564-579.
“Veto Players, Policy Change, and Institutional Design," with Tiberiu Dragu. 2017. Research and Politics. 4(3): 1-6.
“Cognitive Responses by U.S. Presidents to Foreign Policy Crises,” with B. Gregory Marfleet, in Rethinking Foreign Policy Analysis: States, Leaders, and the Micro-foundations of Behavioral International Relations. Stephen G. Walker, Akan Malici, and Mark Schafer, Eds. London: Routledge, 2010.
Working Papers
“The Political Origins of Unequal Protection: Women and the State in Medieval England.”
“Shaping the Electorate: Criminal Prosecution and Felon Disenfranchisement,” with Sidak Yntiso. Appendix.
“Who do states protect? The political economy of market exchange and justice provision,” with Catherine Hafer.
What determines a state’s ability to protect citizens’ rights and foster economic growth? We show that, even if all citizens have equal access to resources, a state can only fully protect its citizens if it can independently, immediately, and perfectly detect and remedy rights violations. Otherwise, its ability to protect citizens varies crucially with economic characteristics of the citizens themselves. Moreover, some citizens—particularly unskilled individuals, or skilled production generalists in possession of significant production economies of scale— may engage in predatory litigation.
Work in Progress
“Fiscal Prosecution,” with Sidak Yntiso.
The funding of local criminal justice offices by the state often depends on rates of crime in the area. Because rates of crime are measured through arrests and convictions, they are endogenously determined by local criminal justice actors. Using data on funding allocations and convictions in Virginia, we show that local conviction counts show significant bunching around funding cutoffs, suggesting that local actors may be manipulating prosecution in order to maximize office funding.
“Judicial Competence and Extreme Decisions.”