I am Anubhav Jha, a Postdoctoral Associate in the Formal Theory and Quantitative Methods group at Department of Politics, Princeton University. I earned my Ph.D. from the Vancouver School of Economics, UBC. I am an Applied Microeconomist with research interests at the intersection of Development Economics, Political Economy, and Industrial Organization. My job market paper shows that identity-based discrimination among primary voters is the main driver of underrepresentation in the U.S. House. While there is discrimination by general election voters, interest groups, and party leadership, and candidates from underrepresented groups on average possess lower political ambitions, these factors do not substantially contribute to underrepresentation.

Discrimination or Ambition: What Drives Underrepresentation in the U.S. House? (Job Market Paper)

Abstract:The underrepresentation of minorities in key government bodies persists across all democratic institutions. For the U.S. House, scholars have identified two leading causes: voter discrimination and election aversion (lower political ambition), which are difficult to isolate from one another. To address this, the paper structurally estimates a model of political entry, voter discrimination, and campaign spending to separate the role of voter discrimination from that of election aversion in explaining underrepresentation. The framework also differentiates discrimination in primaries from that in general elections by modeling both stages. The model identifies election aversion by comparing general election outcomes (campaign spending and voting) between districts with only majority race (or gender) candidates and those with only minority candidates. When candidates on the ballot share the same identity, voters cannot discriminate based on identity. General election voter discrimination is then identified by comparing equilibrium outcomes between same-identity and mixed-identity districts. The dynamic structure of primaries followed by the general election allows me to account for candidate incentives and general election voter discrimination while recovering primary voter discrimination. I find that primary voter discrimination is the main driver of underrepresentation in the U.S. House. Although underrepresented groups show lower political ambition and face general election voter bias, these factors contribute minimally to underrepresentation. Policy counterfactuals show that a $150,000 campaign support subsidy during the primaries for underrepresented groups increases representation by 30% for Democrats and 177% for Republicans, while the same support in general elections has a negligible impact.

Working Papers:

Rally The Vote: Electoral Competition With Direct Campaign Communication 

Abstract: Political rallies constitute a large part of electoral campaigning in the U.S. and in modern democracies since the 19th century and remain a salient politico-economic phenomenon today. This paper accounts for candidates’ strategic decisions to rally as a finite-horizon dynamic game of electoral competition and applies it to structurally estimate rally spatial and temporal choices by candidates. For the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections, we show that rallies substantially increase poll margin leads in targeted constituencies over non-rallying opponents and trigger systematic dynamic responses by opponents. In terms of magnitudes, rallies by presidential candidates are more persuasive than television ads, and estimates of the gross effect show that President Trump’s rallies were in fact electorally pivotal. Instead, rallies by all other candidates did not change their win probability. Counterfactual policy experiments reveal that the effects of short-term campaign silences (i.e., electoral blackouts) are limited since candidates can time their rallies and gain sufficient support from the electorate before campaign silences begin.

Presentations/Awards: APSA 24, SAET 24, ACEGD 23 (ISI-Delhi), Delhi Winter School 23 (organized by Econometric Society, DSE, and CDE), Stockholm School of Economics,IIES-Stockholm University; Political Economy Rookiefest-Northwestern University; Queen’s University; University of Warwick; Syracuse University; University of Queensland; Applied Young Economics Webinar; EBES; UBC Lunch talks in Dev/PE Group, Microeconomics Group, Econometrics Group.

*Scheduled/Incoming Awards: Best Paper Award Delhi Winter School 2023 (organized by Econometric Society, DSE, and CDE), Third Runner Up at 41st Euroasian Business and Economics Society Conference-Berlin

Do Political Parties Value Government Portfolios Symmetrically? Evidence from European Parliaments 1965-2018

Abstract: While studying government formation in parliamentary democracies, researchers have always assumed that political parties possess identical preferences over government portfolios. This has led us to rely on games that work under the assumption that there is “one pie”, and every coalition member wants it! In this paper, I show that this is not the case in the context of the Western European Parliaments from 1965-2018. First, I document novel patterns that show right party politicians were more likely to be a Minister of Defense, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Justice, and Prime Minister. At the same time, the left was more likely to be allocated to Labor, Environment, Health, Science and Technology, Education, and Transport departments. These patterns indicate a horizontal differentiation of government portfolios by the political parties. Traditional bargaining models do not possess the flexibility that allows for heterogenous preferences of parties. Therefore, I deviate and model this strategic interaction as a Colonel-Blotto game. The model provides me with a prediction about “who gets what.” I exploit this and uncover party preferences over government portfolios as a function of party ideology. I execute counterfactual experiments that uncover the proportion of allocations that can be explained by heterogeneous preferences and quantify the loss in surplus caused by strategic interactions.

Rallies and Popularity: The Case of Indian Parliamentary Elections

Abstract: The paper constructs a model of dynamic electoral competition where politicians compete against each other to stay popular on election day. The model possesses a finite time horizon with a perfect information structure which results in a unique equilibrium— a contribution in itself. An extensive simulation study is conducted to understand the model’s comparative statics, which provides essential intuition that can be used to explain the dynamics of campaign strategy used in practice. The model is applied to the 2019 Indian General Election to test how fairly it performs. This paper also provides one of the first examinations of Modi rallies that helps us to get a sense of how effective Modi rallies were in the 2019 Indian General Elections.

Work in Progress

Reducing the Gender GAP towards a More Representative Democracy (with Amanda de Albuquerque, Frederico Finan, Laura Karpuska, Francesco Trebbi)

Abstract: The goal of this project is to study the demand-side factors that affect voting for female candidates in Brazil. Most standard voting models assume that voters evaluate candidates along several dimensions when deciding for whom to vote. These dimensions often include the candidate’s Gender, their perceived Ability, and their Policy positions, (GAP). Based on these three dimensions, we have developed a structural model to decouple their effects on voting decisions. Importantly, our framework can separately identify the roles of preferences versus beliefs of individual voters in this multidimensional decision. To estimate our model, we have designed a randomized control trial (RCT) that exploits a social media app’s capabilities to micro-target individual voters with messages in the form of ads. Our experiment will consist of several gender-specific treatments that will vary in their level of informativeness. This distinction in informativeness across messages is key for not only isolating changes in salience and beliefs about a particular candidate’s dimension (e.g., gender, ability, and policy), but it will also allow us to recover any learning effects on the voter side without relying on survey-based methods. We will run our experiment in the weeks just prior to this year’s October elections in Brazil, at a geographical scale sufficiently large to detect effects on aggregate vote shares. A key empirical contribution of this work will be its ability to disentangle which dimensions matter the most for voters when choosing a candidate and how gender (both of the candidate and of the voter) plays a role in this choice. Campaigns to promote gender representation require a clear understanding of the roots of underrepresentation to be effective.

Aspiration Based Scapegoating and Anti-Immigration Sentiments in the U.S. (with Siwan Anderson, Garance Genicot, Debraj Ray)

Abstract: We study identity-based reactions to economic disparities in the context of anti-immigration attitudes in the United States. To understand this, we have developed a structural model based on the frameworks of Ray (2006) and Genicot and Ray (2017). A key feature of these models is that rising aspirations can both inspire and frustrate. For example, if an individual’s economic status exceeds their social aspirations, they may increase monetary investments, potentially benefiting future generations. However, if aspirations rise beyond what can feasibly be achieved or become too costly, this may lead to frustration and a decline in economic investment. Consequently, resources may be redirected toward identity-based pursuits. This perspective suggests that the intensified focus on identity advancement results from unmet economic aspirations. We will perform a structural estimation of the model to quantify how frustrated aspirations in the context of rising inequality contribute to the increase in identity-based pursuits. We aim to measure these latter pursuits by changes in anti-immigrant attitudes in the U.S. and the former by their monetary savings decisions. Our structural estimation will allow us to not only test the hypothesized theoretical framework, but it will also help us identify the potential effects of redistribution policies within this framework, so as to make policy relevant predictions with regards to reducing these negative societal consequences.

Judicial Information Acquisition Under Meritocratic Promotions (with Leopoldo Gutierre, Matias Iaryczower, Yuhan Zheng)

Abstract: We have collected data spanning 13 years from the Court of Justice of São Paulo, where we observe promotion outcomes, whether promotions were based on seniority or merit, the number of cases closed by judges, the number of hearings held, and the hierarchy of judges each quarter. Our findings indicate that the higher the ranking of judges in cumulative closed cases, the higher their probability of promotion tends to be. Moreover, the additional number of cases a judge closes decreases as their seniority ranking increases. These findings point out that the rate at which judges close cases depends on their anticipated probability of promotion. We will structurally estimate the case-closing decisions made by judges at various stages of their tenure to empirically test whether these patterns arise from judges inflating their perceived merit by prematurely closing cases (without acquiring the socially optimal level of information) or whether merit-based promotions effectively increase the productivity of public servants.

How uncertain revenue streams have influenced media slant in the Indian print media? (with Sabyasachi Das, Shresth Garg, Sagar Saxena)

Abstract: We study the Indian print media industry, specifically analyzing how individual newspaper’s profit maximizing incentives influences their editorial decisions. We are collecting data on political articles published in Indian newspapers, covering both English and regional languages. We will use the content of the news article headlines to construct a time-varying index of media slant for each newspaper, spanning both the UPA and NDA government years. This data source can help one to answer multiple questions. First, it can address the trade-off newspapers face when optimally allocating space for government ads and determining the extent to which their reporting is critical of the sitting government. Second, we aim to investigate how much bargaining power the government holds in determining both the amount of ad space sold to newspapers and the prices for that space, while also influencing the newspaper’s slant. Is a more favorable slant compensated by higher ad revenue, or can the government easily dictate the slant with minimal monetary compensation? A third question explores how electoral incentives influence the amount of ads purchased, specifically what percentage of the government sponsored ads are electorally motivated and what percentage of the ads are not.

Voting cost and platform position taking in the U.S. Senatorial Elections (with Gleason Juddand Riley Steel)

• Best Paper Award Delhi Winter School 2023 (organized by Econometric Society, DSE, and CDE)
• Graduate Support Initiative, University of British Columbia:  2017-2021
• President’s Academic Excellence Initiative PhD Award, University of British Columbia: 2020-2022
• International Student Award, University of British Columbia: 2017-2022
• Best Student in 1st Year Econometrics Class, University of British Columbia: 2018
• Masters Student Fellowship, Indian Statistical Institute-Delhi (No Tuition + Living stipend): 2015-2017

University of British Columbia

• 2018: Microeconomics-I (Ph.D. sequence) Econ 600         4.8/5.0
• 2019: Microeconomics-I (Ph.D. sequence) Econ 600         4.5/5.0
• 2021: Principles of Microeconomics Econ 101- L01,L03     4.5/5.0, 4.3/5.0
• 2021: Intermediate Microeconomics (Hons.)-I Econ 304    4.8/5.0
• 2021: Intermediate Macroeconomics (Hons.)-I Econ 305   4.7/5.0
• 2022: Intermediate Microeconomics (Hons.)-II Econ 306   5.0/5.0
• 2022: Intermediate Macroeconomics (Hons.)-II Econ 307  5.0/5.0