Joshua Tucker

With yesterday’s 1st round French Presidential election result in the news, the question of what will be the electoral price paid by governments that financed the current round of financial bailouts during the Euro crisis is bound to surface again. Recent research by political scientists Michael M. Bechtel, Jens Hainmueller, and Yotam M. Margalit sheds […]

In this time of April, when most people think about taxes it involves making sure they get filed, as well as how much you owe (or are owed by) the government. But taxes can also play a crucial role in electoral politics. Generally, we tend to think of taxes as one of (if not the […]

Since James Carville famously wrote “The Economy, Stupid” in Bill Clinton’s campaign headquarters, the mass public has become increasingly familiar with what is one of the more important “facts” discovered by political scientists: US presidential elections are undoubtedly affected by the state of the economy. The question of which part of the economy matters most, […]

Now that Rick Santorum has suspended his presidential campaign, we are going to see the inevitable slew of articles on how important/challenging it will be for Romney to win over Santorum’s voters for the general election (see here and here for example). From the perspective of someone who studies comparative politics (otherwise known as domestic […]

With all eyes on North Korea’s coming missile launch, we are pleased to welcome the following guest post from Professor James Clay Moltz of the Naval Postgraduate School, the author of Asia’s Space Race: National Motivations, Regional Rivalries, and International Risks: Pyongyang’s upcoming test of its Unha-3 rocket with a satellite aboard has thrown recent […]

Or at the very least, University of Michigan political scientist Jenna Bednar is. Her question appeared in the NY Times Magazine’s The Ethicist column this weekend, when she asked: Given the mounting evidence of long-term and even fatal effects of brain injuries incurred by professional football players, is it ethical for us to watch the […]

Having already been critiqued for my economics acumen by Andrew Gelman earlier, I figured I might as well wander even deeper into the lion’s den by trying my hand at probability theory. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but despite the flurry of articles about how buying a lottery ticket is inherently irrational, at this […]

From the NY Times: A sales tax of 20 percent on pasties and other takeout snacks…. announced last week as part of the government’s austerity budget, was aimed at closing a loophole that exempted hot, freshly baked takeout foods, like pasties, pies, toasted sandwiches and rotisserie chickens, from the point-of-sale tax known in Britain as […]

From cartoonist Ted McCagg: [Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]

Following the Illinois primary, I assume there will be renewed calls for one of Santorum or Gingrich (and most likely the latter) to drop out of the race* in order for conservative Republicans to increase their influence on the nomination process. The logic of the argument is very intuitive: as long as Santorum and Gingrich […]