1. Jeremy Bowles and Horacio Larreguy, "Who Debates, Who Wins? At-Scale Experimental Evidence on the Supply of Policy Information in a Liberian Election. ", American Political Science Review, pages 1-20. 2025.
Abstract:
We examine how the effects of initiatives intended to promote programmatic competition are conditioned by candidates’ often mixed incentives to participate in them. In a nationwide debate initiative designed to solicit and widely rebroadcast policy promises from Liberian legislative candidates, we analyze the randomized encouragement of debate participation across districts. The intervention substantially increased the debate participation of leading candidates but had uneven electoral consequences, with incumbents benefiting at the expense of their challengers. These results are driven by incumbents’ more positive selection into participation on the basis of their policy alignment with voters; voters’ heightened attention to them; and how candidates’ campaigns responded in turn. The results underscore wide variation in candidates’ suitability for programmatic politics and highlight important challenges in transitioning away from clientelistic political equilibria.
2. Raúl Duarte, Frederico Finan, Horacio Larreguy, and Laura Schechter. "Brokering Votes with Information Spread Via Social Networks". Forthcoming at the Review of Economic Studies, 2025.
3. Horacio Larreguy and Pia J. Raffler. "Accountability in Developing Democracies: The Impact of the Internet, Social Media, and Polarization". Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 28, Early publication, 2025.
Abstract:
This article reviews the recent literature on accountability in developing democracies through the lens of two nested principal–agent problems: the relationship between voters and elected politicians and that between elected politicians and bureaucrats. We focus on two global trends that we view as reshaping these accountability relationships in important ways: the rise of the internet and social media on the one hand and increasing political polarization on the other. We evaluate the impacts of these developments on the sanctioning of the performance of elected officials, the selection of elected officials, and the agency problem between elected officials and bureaucrats. Rather than offering definitive conclusions, we highlight key trade trade-offs and emphasize that the overall effects are contingent on the status quo. Notably, much of the existing evidence originates from developed democracies, presenting important opportunities for future research to address gaps in understanding accountability in developing contexts.
4. Eric Arias, Horacio Larreguy, John Marshall, and Pablo Querubin. "Does the Content and Mode of Delivery of Information Matter for Electoral Accountability? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Mexico". Forthcoming in the Special Issue on Experimental Economics at the Latin American Economic Review.
5. Bruno Calderón-Hernández, Horaico Larreguy, John Marshall, and José Luis Pérez-Castellanos. "Electoral precinct-level database for Mexican municipal elections". Scientific Data, Article number: 582 (2025).
Abstract:
This paper introduces a database of electoral precinct-level election returns for Mexican municipal elections between 1994 and 2019. This database includes: (i) electoral precinct-level votes for each electoral coalition, the coalitions of the incumbent mayor and incumbent state governor, and the four most popular political parties; (ii) electoral precinct-level valid and total votes, the number of registered voters, and turnout; (iii) the partisan composition and municipal-level votes of the incumbent and runner-up electoral coalitions from the previous election; and (iv) the partisan composition of the state-level incumbent governor. This paper outlines the organization of this data, its sources, and key variables, and describes the processes used to standardize the data. This database has the potential to support the cross-sectional and longitudinal study of local Mexican elections over two decades using fine-grained precinct-level electoral returns that enable panel and regression discontinuity analyses.
6. Jeremy Bowles, Kevin Croke, Horacio Larreguy, Shelley Liu, and John Marshall. "Sustained exposure to fact-checks can inoculate citizens against misinformation in the Global South". American Political Science Review, First view, pages 1-14 (2025).
Abstract:
Exposure to misinformation can affect citizens’ beliefs, political preferences, and compliance with government policies. However, little is known about how to durably reduce susceptibility to misinformation, particularly in the Global South. We evaluate an intervention in South Africa that encouraged individuals to consume biweekly fact-checks—as text messages or podcasts—via WhatsApp for six months. Sustained exposure to these fact-checks induced substantial internalization of fact-checked content, while increasing participants’ ability to discern new political and health misinformation upon exposure—especially when fact-check consumption was financially incentivized. Fact-checks that could be quickly consumed via short text messages or via podcasts with empathetic content were most effective. We find limited effects on news consumption choices or verification behavior, but still observe changes in political attitudes and COVID-19-related behaviors. These results demonstrate that sustained exposure to fact-checks can inoculate citizens against future misinformation, but highlight the difficulty of inducing broader behavioral changes relating to media usage.
7. Jackson Dorsey, Ashley Langer and Shaun McRae,"Fueling Alternatives: Gas Station Choice and the Implications for Electric Charging." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 17 (1), February 2025, pp. 362-400.
Abstract:
This paper quantifies the value of electric vehicle (EV) charging networks and the marginal value of network speed and density. We estimate a model of gasoline drivers' refueling preferences and simulate how these potential future EV drivers value refueling time under counterfactual charging networks. Drivers value refueling time at $19.73/hour. EV adopters with home charging receive $675 per vehicle in benefits from avoiding travel to gas stations, whereas refueling travel and waiting time costs $7,763 for drivers using public charging. Increasing network charging speed yields three times greater time savings than a proportional increase in station density.
8. Lucas Davis, Shaun McRae, and Enrique Seira. "Competitive Effects of Entry in Gasoline Markets." Accepted at the Journal of Industrial Economics, 2025.
Abstract:
We use panel data on the location, prices, and quality of the universe of gas stations in Mexico to study the competitive effects of entry on incumbent firms. Using more than 1,000 entry events and defining local markets based on the road network, we find that the entry of a new station within three minutes driving time decreases regular gasoline prices by 6 percent of the retail price spread. Competitive effects decline with travel time and are largest in markets that previously had only one station. Entry of stations with the same owner as the incumbent has near-zero effects. The effect of competition on quality is less clear, with suggestive evidence of improved service quality in some specifications.