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New research on political elections from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including marketing lessons from Trump's campaign, how to improve voter turnout, and voter registration costs and disenfranchisement.
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Can Entrepreneurs Make Mobile Voting Easy and Secure?

Re: Mitchell B. Weiss

Making voting more accessible through technology could have tremendous payoffs for democracy—but also pose critical downsides if the product fails. Mitch Weiss, who teaches a course on public entrepreneurship, discusses his case study on Voatz and their plan to turn mobile phones into voting booths. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Do TV Debates Sway Voters?

by Danielle Kost

As Democratic presidential candidates face off at the podium, Vincent Pons reports that TV debates don’t influence voters. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Persuasion by Populist Propaganda: Evidence from the 2015 Argentine Ballotage

by Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Galiani, and Ernesto Schargrodsky

This paper studies data generated prior to the 2015 Argentine presidential ballotage, when a government propaganda campaign was used to attack the opposition candidate and influence voter preferences. Results show the propaganda was persuasive.

Vote Choice Formation and the Minimal Effects of TV Debates: Evidence from 61 Elections in 9 OECD Countries

by Caroline Le Pennec-Caldichoury and Vincent Pons

This study of 61 elections around the world finds that vote choices aggregate a lot of information obtained during the electoral season, but the contribution of TV debates to this process is negligible.

'I Know Why You Voted for Trump' and Other Motivation Misperceptions

by Dina Gerdeman

We often make knee-jerk assumptions about what motivates other people’s choices, a bad habit both in the political and business worlds. Kate Barasz explains what we can do about it. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Does Facebook's Business Model Threaten Our Elections?

by George Riedel

America's 2016 presidential election was the target of voter manipulation via social media, particularly on Facebook. George Riedel thinks history is about to repeat itself. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Strict ID Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008–2016

by Enrico Cantoni and Vincent Pons

Evidence on the consequences of strict ID laws adopted between 2008 and 2016 shows no significant negative effect on registration or turnout overall or for any subgroup defined by age, gender, race, or party affiliation. ID requirements had no significant effect on actual or perceived fraud, either.

Voter ID Laws Don't Work (But They Don't Hurt Anything, Either)

by Sean Silverthorne

Voter ID laws are often proposed as an antidote to election fraud. There's just one problem, according to Vincent Pons. They don't work. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Rankings Matter Even When They Shouldn't: Bandwagon Effects in Two-Round Elections

by Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud

Results of the French parliamentary and local elections since 1958 show that candidates ranked higher in the first round are more likely to stay in the race for the second round and win it. Arriving first instead of second and second instead of third increases winning by 5.8 and 9.9 percentage points, respectively.

Fearing Fox News, Democratic-leaning Companies Delayed Negative Announcements

by Jen Deaderick

Jonas Heese and Vishal P. Baloria explore strategies used by companies to reduce the risk of potentially negative press, focusing on Fox News and the 2000 presidential election. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Expressive Voting and Its Cost: Evidence from Runoffs with Two or Three Candidates

by Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud

This paper highlights the motivations and consequences of citizens voting for lower-ranked candidates in elections held under plurality rule. Findings show that a large fraction of voters are what the authors call expressive. Expressive voters vote for their favorite candidate even if it causes the defeat of their second-best choice.

Populism and the Return of the 'Paranoid Style': Some Evidence and a Simple Model of Demand for Incompetence as Insurance Against Elite Betrayal

by Rafael Di Tella and Julio J. Rotemberg

Two themes emerging from studies of populist discourse have been “betrayal” and disdain for scientific or technical competence as traditionally embraced by elites. This paper connects betrayal and competence to examine why voters sometimes choose the less competent candidate.

6 Lessons from Donald Trump's Winning Marketing Manual

by John A. Quelch

Donald Trump's upset election win offers six lessons for marketers looking to beat the odds and overcome powerful competitors, says John A. Quelch. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Twitter Election

by John Quelch and Thales Teixeira

Twitter is emerging as one of the most important players in the 2016 presidential election, write John Quelch and Thales Teixeira. But does it have the power to determine which candidate will win? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Can Brand Trump Win a Presidency?

by John A. Quelch

Brand Trump has been used to market hotel rooms, ties, and an airline. Can it be extended to win the presidency? Marketing Professor John A. Quelch wonders if the message (and the messenger) is already growing thin. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Why People Don’t Vote--and How a Good Ground Game Helps

by Michael Blanding

Recent research by Vincent Pons shows that campaigners knocking on the doors of potential voters not only improves overall turnout but helps individual candidates win more of those votes. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Perils of Building Democracy in Africa

by Benjamin Marx, Vincent Pons, and Tavneet Suri

Results from a text messaging experiment conducted before the 2013 National Election in Kenya show that basic information provided via short message service (SMS) resulted in small turnout increases but had a large effect on attitudes towards electoral institutions.

Voter Registration Costs and Disenfranchisement: Experimental Evidence from France

by Celine Braconnier, Jean-Yves Dormagen, and Vincent Pons

In most democracies, voter registration is automatic and done by the state. But in a few others, such as the United States and France, registration is self-initiated: citizens who wish to vote must register first, and they need to do so again each time they move. This study examines the effects of canvassing and home registration of unregistered and misregistered citizens in 10 French cities.

Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization

by Benjamin Marx, Vincent Pons, and Tavneet Suri

A key question in organizations is whether there is an optimal balance between diversity and sameness within teams of workers. Findings from a field experiment within a nonprofit research organization based in Kenya suggest much of the tradeoff between diversity and sameness may come from the different effects diversity has along different dimensions of organizational structure. Diversity along the organization’s hierarchy improves both effort and performance.

Do Interactions with Candidates Increase Voter Support and Participation? Experimental Evidence from Italy

by Vincent Pons

Elections in established democracies regularly attract less than half of the voting-age population. This low electoral participation raises concerns for the overall legitimacy and stability of the democratic regimes. This study of a mid-sized city in northern Italy during the 2014 municipal elections finds that while volunteers’ visits increased participation by a significant 1.8 percentage points, surprisingly the candidates’ own visits affected neither the average voter nor any subgroup of the population, whether defined by age, gender, place of birth, or turnout history.