🚨 Just accepted at
@RevEconStudies
🚨
with
@yasirmkh
We study ordinary people's entry into politics as candidates in a field exp. We show that portraying the job as a prosocial one increases the chances they run & win. Subsequently, policy aligns more with citizen preferences.
``How politics is perceived matters for political selection & policy: when portrayed as enabling pro-social action ordinary people run for office, get elected, and make policies that reflect voter preferences.''
Recently accepted paper, from
@saadgulzar
and
@yasirmkh
👇
I applied to 24 PhD programs in 2012, spending months of my salary. Only
@NYUpolitics
admitted me💜 They are incredible at taking a chance on international students who may not have fancy letters or undergrad labels. I remember ordering KFC to celebrate my admission. 😹
I'm starting this thread on why doing data-driven research in Pakistan is *so* hard. Here I'll document mostly my own experiences and observations. I'll try to provide comparisons when I can.
Some professional news: I'm joining
@PrincetonSPIA
and
@PUPolitics
this September! Really looking forward to getting to know everyone, and excited about being plugged back into the east coast community!
Princeton School of Public & International Affairs
🚨Just accepted at
@APSRjournal
🚨
"Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas" with
@Nicholas_Haas_1
&
@bjpasquale
Full paper here:
THREAD
September 1st is my first day at
@PUPolitics
and
@PrincetonSPIA
. I'm really excited to meet everyone!
I'm looking to hire a Post-Doc (see ad below), and undergrad RAs (see details below) at Princeton ASAP! Please help spread the word! 🙏
🚨 Just accepted at
@apsrjournal
🚨
"Representation and Forest Conservation: Evidence from India’s Scheduled Areas"
with
@Apoorva__Lal
and
@bjpasquale
We show that boosting representation for marginalized ST population improved forest conservation in India
Summary thread 👇
Are you interested in political economy and development research with a focus on South Asia?
Come work with me as a postdoctoral fellow starting this summer!
Details here:
We will begin processing applications next week!
So excited that
@MairaHayat
won the SS Pirzada dissertation prize for the "best work in the humanities, social sciences, law, or public health on Pakistan" awarded annually by
@ISASatBerkeley
Her dissertation abstract:
Her work:
I used the example of Neo choosing between the red pill and the blue pill in my causal inference class to explain the concept of the counterfactual. Got blank looks. Turns out, all students were born after the Matrix was released.
Asked my undergrad class of around 40 students if they'd seen The Wire. Only three kids raised their hands, and now I'm really concerned about the cultural health of our next generation. We seem to be failing them in a major way.
I'm looking to hire a full-time pre-doc/research specialist at
@PrincetonSPIA
with strong programming skills (Python/R) and an interest in social science applications (development/environment/political economy). Pls help spread the word!
Apply:
@econ_ra
So happy to receive the AJPS best article award. Thankful for my amazing coauthors
@nelson_ruizg
and
@ruedamiguel13
, and the committee for this recognition!
🚨 Just published
@AJPS_Editor
🚨
"Do Campaign Contribution Limits Curb the Influence of Money in Politics?" with
@ruedamiguel13
&
@nelson_ruizg
Short ans: Yes, they diffuse the influence of $ & improve efficiency of subsequent government performance!
Paper summary THREAD 👇
Just accepted
@The_JOP
"Information, Candidate Selection, and the Quality of Representation: Evidence from Nepal" with
@ZuhadHai
&
@bnpaul20
RCT: party leaders update candidate selection when polling info is presented to them, ⇧ vote share!
THREAD
🚨Just accepted at
@APSRjournal
🚨
"Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas" with
@Nicholas_Haas_1
&
@bjpasquale
Full paper here:
THREAD
You know you’re at a development economics conference when no one says they liked the paper in the Q&A 😂 And you know you’re at a political science conference when everyone says they loved the paper in the Q&A🤣
I'm presenting at the South Asia Seminar at Brown University work with
@gemmadipoppa
. The talk is this Friday from 2-4pm at Joukowsky Forum on the first floor of Watson Institute. Drop by if interested!
So proud to see
@a_abdelgadir
, my first PhD student, graduate from Stanford today. You already know her APSR research on the headscarf ban in France, you’ll have to wait just a tad longer to learn about her ambitious book project on the spread of Islam in sub Saharan Africa! 🥳
So excited to receive this good news after a long zoom call today. Especially thankful for amazing co-authors
@Nicholas_Haas_1
&
@bjpasquale
for making this possible.
This thread gives a summary of our paper on political affirmation action & development:
Thrilled to share that my paper with
@saadgulzar
and
@bjpasquale
received the Lawrence Longley Award from the Representation and Electoral Systems section of APSA for the best article published in the previous year!
@APSAtweets
@RepresentElect
Want to do a PhD in political science/economics? Want/need research experience before you do that? Check out this fantastic pre-doc program. People living in low-middle income countries are particularly encouraged to apply!
Apply now for our two year predoc program! This program aims to help individuals prepare for an academic career in global development. Students from low- and middle-income countries are encouraged to apply.
#predoc
The only thing I want to add to the methods vs big questions debate is that big and “interesting” questions are typically defined by the privileged senior academics who have mostly spent their entire life in the US/Europe (with maybe brief stints abroad for fieldwork).
🚨 If you're thinking of applying to a PhD in Political Science in the U.S., check out this amazing program by
@StanfordPoliSci
PhD students to help you put in your possible application! Please share! 🚨
📢 Just accepted at
@JEEA_News
📢
"Political Identity: Experimental Evidence on Anti-Americanism in Pakistan".
We isolate political identity’s role in political behavior, separating it from consequential or social motives.
THREAD
#EconAdvice
question from a PhD student in the US who comes from a developing country:
"How can students from a developing country, studying in US, think of research ideas which are more applicable in the US or in a global context?"
@soleprillaman
and I are recruiting a postdoc to join our Inclusive Democracy and Development Lab. Please apply through the common Stanford Impact Labs listing here:
🚨 Just accepted at
@apsrjournal
🚨
"Representation and Forest Conservation: Evidence from India’s Scheduled Areas"
with
@Apoorva__Lal
and
@bjpasquale
We show that boosting representation for marginalized ST population improved forest conservation in India
Summary thread 👇
Congratulations to Dr
@MairaHayat
on passing her dissertation “Ecologies of Water Governance in Pakistan: The Colony, The Corporation and the Contemporary” at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago
I'm hiring a predoc with
@goyal_tanushree
to work on projects related to culture, enviro, pol econ etc. Details at: We'll start looking at apps on March 20th. cc
@econ_ra
For my colleagues in academia evaluating work on Pakistan, I've started adding something like to my Pakistan work to highlight the importance and dearth of evidence: "Pakistan is the fifth most populous country, equivalent in population to all of Western Europe combined."
I'm starting this thread on why doing data-driven research in Pakistan is *so* hard. Here I'll document mostly my own experiences and observations. I'll try to provide comparisons when I can.
If you have a data science background with an interest in social science, come work w Dan Rogger,
@mzmehmood
& me as a research assistant/ST consultant @ DIME World Bank on a project examining the impacts of large education reforms in 🇵🇰. Deadline April 25
Our article on the role of political representation in forest conservation in India is finally published open access in the current issue of the
@apsrjournal
Get a free copy here:
🚨 Just accepted at
@apsrjournal
🚨
"Representation and Forest Conservation: Evidence from India’s Scheduled Areas"
with
@Apoorva__Lal
and
@bjpasquale
We show that boosting representation for marginalized ST population improved forest conservation in India
Summary thread 👇
🚨 Just published in
@EconomicaLSE
🚨 with Mike Callen,
@arezaee
& Jake Shapiro
Free pdf
We started this project back in 2012 because we were puzzled by why so many strong states seemed to leave large regions to non-state actors. Mini thread below...
Wrote the first draft of this summer 2013, submitted to AJPS Dec 2015, got rejected there after 10 months. Submitted JOP Mar 2017; Accepted Nov 2018; Published online at JOP Feb 2020.
My MA(!) is finally published online at
@The_JOP
co-authors
@arezaee
& Mike Callen
from work with govt of Punjab 2010-12
Short summary- political alignment has ambiguous welfare consequences for voters: there is quality-quantity trade-off
THREAD
Out in print in April's issue of
@The_JOP
Some cool things about this research: first large-scale representative survey of Basic Health Units in Punjab + non-spicy academic take on the behavior of PML(N) vs other legislators :)
My MA(!) is finally published online at
@The_JOP
co-authors
@arezaee
& Mike Callen
from work with govt of Punjab 2010-12
Short summary- political alignment has ambiguous welfare consequences for voters: there is quality-quantity trade-off
THREAD
🚨 Just published at
@JPubEcon
🚨
In this paper, we study public employee absenteeism--a chronic and intractable problem in the developing world--and document how politics intervenes to protect shirking frontline managers, both in the status quo and during a large-scale reform!
Recently published paper in the
@JPubEcon
:
"The Political Economy of Public Sector Absence"
Vol 218 (Feb 2023)
by Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar (
@saadgulzar
), Ali Hasanain (
@AliHasanain
), Muhammad Yasir Khan (
@yasirmkh
), & Arman Rezaee (
@arezaee
)
“Why are you visiting the UK?”
“To present a paper at an academic conference.”
“What’s the paper on?”
*stressing about nailing the appropriate amont of detail*
“Err.. it’s about politics in Pakistan.”
“Anything specific about that?”
“Well, scholars have long wondered...”
Just returning from my first NBER political economy meeting. Felt a bit out of place as one of two political scientists in the room 🙁 and not speaking the official language (Italian) 😂
Concerned about the role of money in politics? Read our new working paper with
@nelson_ruizg
and Miguel Rueda on how campaign contribution limits can help.
Paper here:
THREAD
I applied to 6 programs, as a Comparativist.
1. Duke (accepted, full funding)
2. UT Austin (accepted, full funding)
3. U. Michigan (rejected)
4. UCSD (rejected)
5. MIT (rejected)
6. Berkeley (rejected)
My dream school was Duke 🇲🇽🇺🇸
I became an Americanist w/in first year.
Returned one report in an hour or so (was easy). Dear universe, please send some of that positive karma back (especially on that paper that’s been under review for 10 months).
What advice do people have about finding local co-authors? In my experience finding any co-authors is a difficult job. (Needs to be an alignment of research interests, complimentary skills, similar working styles, etc) Even harder when unlikely to have much face-to-face exposure.
The received wisdom in CP is often from places that are unrepresentative of broader phenomena. When scholars (finally) bring evidence from these areas, they have to do the extra work of making figures like these to show why their case is "interesting" & "important".
Today, I'll talk about local govt data
One pet peeve I have is that despite so many experiments with local govt in Pk, it is shocking to me that we have no systematic data on *basic* descriptives on what actually happened. Take the 2015 LG elections in KP as an example...
Strongly disagree. The political *must* be part of national projects if they are to succeed. We've seen plenty of technocratic projects see failure at the hands of the political.
So excited for the first pre-APSA South Asia conference on August 28th co-organized with
@irfannooruddin
@bijurao
@jenniferbussell
We have papers on India, Pakistan, and Nepal and around 120 people registered to attend!
See you all on Wednesday!
If you order the stuffed paratha — and you must order the stuffed paratha — a $3 masterpiece that comes, as it should, with a dollop of raita, a few pieces of pickled onion and a single gold foil-wrapped pat of butter
Extremely important paper from India with implications for the recent exclusion of beneficiaries from BISP. Critical to note that any such research is missing in Pakistan. The focus on curbing corruption/political interference is sidelining important issues of exclusion.
we've released experimental evidence on the impacts of Aadhaar. we find it did reduce leakage, but at the cost of some exclusion and pain to genuine beneficiaries. w/
@karthik_econ
and
@sandipz
Much as I agree with this take, American politics (a sub “field” of political science) does the same with political science of the rest of the world, called “comparative politics”🙃
Open econ paper on a major topic in contemporary public opinion research in American politics (opinion change on gay rights).
See it cites literally five poli sci papers, including NONE on the topic it considers.
Close econ paper.
Come on.
The province of 30million went from directly electing ~125 reps to the KP assembly to electing around 45,000 people across the province. That's a huge move towards democratization, but no one knows how many ppl ran for office, what the degree of competition was on various seats..
Why do people get offended when they are told to leash their pets in public spaces? Today’s incident is just another reminder (as if we needed one) that public spaces are more public for some than others.
Just accepted
@The_JOP
"Information, Candidate Selection, and the Quality of Representation: Evidence from Nepal" with
@ZuhadHai
&
@bnpaul20
RCT: party leaders update candidate selection when polling info is presented to them, ⇧ vote share!
THREAD
Friends, I'm writing an Annual Review of Political Science paper on political selection research in poli sci tentatively titled "Who runs for office and why?" Is there anything I should read&engage with. Poli sci research preferred, but other disciplines welcome. Thank you!
🚨 Just published
@AJPS_Editor
🚨
"Do Campaign Contribution Limits Curb the Influence of Money in Politics?" with
@ruedamiguel13
&
@nelson_ruizg
Short ans: Yes, they diffuse the influence of $ & improve efficiency of subsequent government performance!
Paper summary THREAD 👇
Registration is now open for the (virtual) 2022 PDRI Conference on Climate Change & the Environment on May 12th. We have an exciting list of speakers lined up, who will present new work on the social science of climate change in LMICs.
Register here:
As I said, my colleagues are awesome! I didn't ever get a chance to take a class with David but I taught one with him last year and I have a feeling I learned more than the students :) Congratulations, David!
We are delighted to announce that David D. Laitin
@StanfordPoliSci
is awarded the 2021 Johan Skytte Prize. Professor Laitin wins the prize for his “original and objective explanation of how politics shapes cultural strategies in heterogeneous societies.”
#PoliSciTwitter
I took a 5-minute break from work to respond to an email that seemed urgent. Next thing I knew, I had spent 90 minutes responding to email/slack/whatsapp/phone notifications. Finding large blocks of time to write is the hardest thing when you do field-based research!
Alhamdulillah, I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining
@Harvard
Government as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2024 after a one-year post doc. I’m so grateful for this opportunity and for my community who helped me get here especially in the moments when I thought I wouldn’t. 1/5
Between 1921 and 1956, French colonial governments forcibly injected patients in 5 central African countries with medicines with severe, sometimes fatal, side effects. Vaccination rates remain lower today.
I have tried multiple times to begin assembling KP local elections with
@yasirmkh
but we've repeatedly found that even the Election Commission has no idea what actually happened because no one bothered collecting data even at the district level.
I'm excited to update the slides of my Spring 2022 Causal Inference for Social Science lecture at Stanford with photos of the 2019 and 2021 Econ Nobel prize winners!
Your regular reminder that "general interest" is not so general. Editors think that research relevant to 1/4 of the world population is not broad enough for their discipline.
Please share your syllabus (& advice) if you’ve done a political economy of development lecture for undergrads. I’ll be co-teaching an intro lecture on this with
@soleprillaman
next year. 🙏🏽
.. whether the various quotas for youth, non-muslims, farmers, women etc mattered for who contested and won. How can we even begin to evaluate the efficacy of this reform without knowing whether it moved the things it should have moved first?
Associate professor
@saadgulzar
interviews Reetika Khera about her book, "Dissent on Aadhaar," which debunks the prevailing wisdom around India's ID system.
In our sample, not a single woman ran on an open seat. Many women's seats were won uncontested. The highest competition was for youth seats, not open seats. Farmer seats won with more votes than people who became nazims.
Most research is about rich countries, even though 76% of the world's population live in middle-income and 9% in low-income countries.
This imbalance has important consequences for what tools, products and policies are available to decision-makers in the South.
“When things were going well, I was reading newspapers articles and they were calling me Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian striker.
When things weren’t going well, they were calling me Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian striker of Congolese descent.”
Very very happy that this is now official for my dear friend and lifelong coauthor
@yasirmkh
! Pitt Econ is so lucky to have him. Check out Yasir‘s important research on govt personnel, both bureaucrats and politicians!
📢 Just accepted at
@JEEA_News
📢
"Political Identity: Experimental Evidence on Anti-Americanism in Pakistan".
We isolate political identity’s role in political behavior, separating it from consequential or social motives.
THREAD
Absolutely appalled at this display of cowardice and violence by the Pakistani state. I went to college with Ammar and know his politics to be conscientious and, importantly, pro-people.
#WhoIsAmmarRashid
I talk here a bit about my path to a research career, including working with the health department in Punjab. I also talk about my work on inclusive representation and policy, and why studying local democracy is important, particularly in South Asia!
We had the opportunity to speak with
@StanfordPoliSci
Assistant Professor and
@StanfordKingCtr
faculty affiliate
@saadgulzar
about his research on the political economy of development and comparative politics across South Asia. Read more here:
In 1971, Pakistan was 70% richer than Bangladesh; today, Bangladesh is 45% richer than Pakistan. One Pakistani economist glumly pointed out that “it is in the realm of possibility that we could be seeking aid from Bangladesh in 2030.”
"Bangladesh is far richer than the depressed Indian states where Hindu nationalist politicians have been railing against Bangladeshi “termites.” It’s as if Mississippi were fretting about illegal immigration from Canada."
The
@MPSAnet
registration system asks for "Dietary restrictions/Requests".. the standard options include a "Low Carb" option but no "No pork" option. Representation matters... even in political science organizations.