Note: Please
find below a replication archive for the 2009 APSR paper and I will add archives
soon for other empirical papers soon.
Publications
Cole, Shawn, Andrew Healy, and Eric Werker. 2012. “Do Voters Demand Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief,” Journal of Development Economics 97(2): 167-181.
Abstract: Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, we find evidence that fewer voters punish the ruling party when the party responds vigorously to the crisis. Moreover, severe crises are associated with increased voter sensitivity to disaster assistance. These results provide an explanation for Amartya Sen’s claim that democratic governments respond better to salient emergencies than to less conspicuous ones. Even so, most responses to most crises leave the incumbent coalition worse off than had it not been in power during a crisis at all.
Healy, Andrew and Jennifer Pate. 2011. “Can Teams Help to Close the Gender Competition Gap?” Economic Journal 121: 1192-1204.
Abstract: Previous research indicates that significant gender differences occur when experimental subjects choose whether or not to enter a competition. In terms of maximizing their payoffs in an experiment, for example, women have been shown to compete too little based on the quality of their performances, and men have been shown to compete too much. We investigate the potential for competing in teams to either reduce or eliminate these gender differences. We first replicate earlier findings of a gender gap in competitions based on individual performance. We then isolate the effect of competing in teams by having subjects participate in the same task and choose whether they want to enter a competition based on the combined performance of themselves and a teammate. The results show that competing in two-person teams reduces the gender competition gap by two-thirds. Regardless of the sex of one’s partner, female subjects prefer to compete in teams while male subjects prefer to compete as individuals. We find that this result appears to be driven primarily by gender differences in competitive preferences, as opposed to other potential explanations such as risk aversion or confidence.
Media coverage: Guardian, The Glass Hammer
Healy, Andrew and Neil Malhotra. 2010. “Random Events, Economic Losses, and Retrospective Voting: Implications for Democratic Competence,” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 5(2): 193-208.
Abstract: We leverage the natural experiment afforded by tornado incidence to estimate the effect of exogenous economic loss on electoral outcomes. We find that voters punish the incumbent party in presidential elections for economic damage resulting from tornadoes. While this behavior could suggest that retrospective voting in this domain reflects voters irrationally blaming incumbent politicians for circumstances beyond their control, we instead find evidence suggesting that voting behavior reflects democratic competence. First, voters do not punish the incumbent party for tornado-caused deaths, which governments likely do not have the power to address with effective policy. Second, the incumbent party may actually gain votes when a disaster declaration is made in response to the tornado, only losing votes when no declaration takes place. Thus, voters appear to be rewarding and punishing government with respect to its performance in handling the disaster, as opposed to blaming the government for these natural events.
Healy, Andrew, Cecilia Mo, and Neil Malhotra.
2010. “Irrelevant
Events Affect Voters' Evaluations of Government Performance,” Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 107(28): 12506-12511.
Abstract: Does information irrelevant to government performance affect voting behavior? If so, how does this help us understand the mechanisms underlying voters’ retrospective assessments of candidates’ performance in office? To precisely test for the effects of irrelevant information, we explore the electoral impact of local college football games just before an election, truly irrelevant events that government has nothing to do with and for which no government response would be expected. We find that a win in the ten days before Election Day causes the incumbent to receive an additional 1.6 percentage points of the vote in Senate, gubernatorial, and presidential elections, with the effect being larger for teams with stronger fan support. In addition to conducting placebo tests based on post-election games, we also demonstrate these effects by using the betting market’s estimate of a team’s probability of winning the game before it occurs to isolate the surprise component of game outcomes. We corroborate these aggregate-level results with a survey that we conducted during the 2009 NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament, where we find that surprising wins and losses affect presidential approval. An experiment embedded within the survey also indicates that personal well-being influences voting decisions on a subconscious level. We find that making people more aware of the reasons for their current state of mind reduces the effect that irrelevant events have on their opinions. These findings underscore both the subtle power of irrelevant events in shaping important real-world decisions, and suggest ways in which decision-making can be improved.
Media coverage: Reuters, ABC, MSNBC, AP, Discover, TownHall.com, The Economist, Scientific American
Andam, Kwaw S., Paul J. Ferraro, Katharine R.E. Sims, Andrew Healy, and Margaret Holland. 2010. “Protected Areas Reduced Poverty in Costa Rica and Thailand,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(22): 9996-10001.
Abstract: Global efforts to protect ecosystems rely heavily on protected areas, but the socioeconomic impacts of these areas on neighboring communities are hotly debated. The debate persists because previous studies do not directly measure poverty and do not use appropriate comparison groups to account for baseline differences in affected communities. We use new comprehensive data sets and quasi-experimental matching methods to estimate impacts of protected area systems on poverty in Costa Rica and Thailand. Although communities near protected areas are indeed substantially poorer than national averages, an analysis based on comparison with appropriate controls does not support the hypothesis that these differences can be attributed to protected areas. In contrast, the results indicate protection alleviated poverty.
Healy, Andrew and Neil Malhotra. 2009. “Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy,” American Political Science Review 103(3): 387-406.
Abstract: Using comprehensive data on natural disasters, government spending, and election returns, we show that voters reward disaster relief spending but not disaster prevention spending. This aspect of voter behavior creates a large distortion in the incentives that governments face, since the results demonstrate that prevention spending substantially reduces future damage. Even in their responses to disaster relief, voters do not effectively hold governments accountable for their actions, since they reward relief spending that is unrelated to disaster damage similarly to spending that is actually prompted by damage. While the results illustrate multiple failures in voters’ abilities to hold governments accountable, they also suggest that grass-roots efforts may help voters to reward government action that increases public welfare. Voters responded significantly to one particular disaster prevention program that emphasized communication and community involvement, behavior that stands in stark contrast to the ambivalence that voters display for prevention spending in general.
What the blogs have to say: NY Times' Freakonomics blog; EconLog; In Case of Emergency
Healy, Andrew. 2009. “How Effectively Do People Learn from a Variety of Different Opinions?” Experimental Economics 12(4): 386-416.
Abstract: This paper presents experimental evidence about how individuals learn from information coming from heterogeneous sources. In the experiment, Thai subjects observed information that came from Americans and other Thais that they could use to help them answer a series of questions. Despite listening too little to either group, subjects demonstrated a significant amount of statistical sophistication in how they weighed observed American information relative to observed Thai information. The data indicate that subjects understood that outside information has extra value because people from the same group tend to make the same kinds of mistakes. The results illustrate the importance of forming diverse groups to solve problems.
Healy, Andrew. 2008. “Do Firms Have Short Memories? Evidence from Major League Baseball,” Journal of Sports Economics 9(4): 407-24.
Abstract: When deciding what salary to offer an employee, a firm needs to predict that employee’s future productivity. One piece of information that a firm can use to predict productivity is the employee’s past performance record. Classical theory predicts that firms will effectively use the available information to choose an appropriate salary offer. Evidence from baseball contracts indicates, however, that memory-based biases influence salary offers. Consistent with insights from psychology and behavioral economics, salaries are affected too much by recent performance compared to past performance. All organizations do not suffer equally from short memories. The teams that achieve the most with the money that they spend also use past performance data most effectively.
Healy, Andrew and Jitsuchon, Somchai. 2007. “Finding the Poor in Thailand,” Journal of Asian Economics, 18(3) 739-59.
Wantchekon, Leonard and Andrew Healy. 1999. “The ‘Game’ of Torture,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 43(4): 596-609.