EdPolicyWorks Speaker Series: Andrew Simon

Abstract

To understand the causes and consequences of polarized demand for government expenditure, we conduct three experiments in the context of public higher education. The first two study polarization in demand for public services. We provide information about state provision that shapes beliefs about social returns on investment. Our treatments narrow the political partisan gap in ideal policies by up to 32%---a reduction in ideological polarization. We find partisan reasoning is a key mechanism. Providing information also affects how people communicate their ideal policies to elected officials, increasing their propensity to write a (positive) letter to an official of the other party---a reduction in affective polarization. Finally, in a natural field experiment, we send these letters to a randomized subset of elected officials to study how policymakers respond to constituent demand. We find that officials who receive their constituents' demands engage more with higher education issues in our correspondences.

Speaker Bio

Andrew Simon is an Assistant Professor in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on issues in state and local public finance, especially higher education finance and policy, and employment policy. Before joining UVA, he spent three years as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago and the Australian National University. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan, where he was an Institute for Education Sciences predoctoral fellow, and received his bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics from Cornell University.   

No registration is required.

If you'd like to receive EdPolicyWorks Speaker Series updates and calendar information, click here to be added to the listserv.