Gregory A. Huber's Papers

Gregory A. Huber: Papers, Abstracts, Replication data, and On-line appendices

Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University
Resident Fellow of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies
& the Center for the Study of American Politics

Is There a Secret Ballot? Ballot Secrecy Perceptions and Their Implications for Voting Behavior

Abstract: Ballot secrecy is a core feature of American elections, but whether voters believe their choices are protected has not been investigated. Using novel items from a nationally representative survey we find, first, that approximately 25% of all respondents, and larger shares of less educated, less affluent, and minority groups, do not believe their ballot choices are kept secret. Second, 70% of respondents report sharing their vote choices with others. In sum, few people view their vote choices as truly private. We describe how a standard theoretical account of candidate choice must be revised when voters believe their choices are public and examine how voter perceptions of ballot secrecy affect candidate choice. Our findings suggest that the translation from formal rules to perceptions about these rules is not straightforward and that subjective perceptions of how institutions work can affect voter behavior.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, Conor M. Dowling, and David Doherty. 2009. "Is There a Secret Ballot? Ballot Secrecy Perceptions and Their Implications for Voting Behavior." Working Paper, ISPS Yale University.

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Using Battleground States as a Natural Experiment to Test Theories of Voting

Abstract: We use variation produced by the Electoral College-the creation of battleground and non battleground states-to examine explanations for why people vote. We employ a longer time series (1980-2008) than previous research to gauge the effect of battleground status on state-level turnout. Our model includes (1) midterm elections, allowing us to directly compare the effect of battleground status with the broader increase in turnout associated with presidential elections, and (2) state fixed effects, which capture persistent state-level factors related to turnout. We find that the turnout boost from a presidential election is eight times the effect of being a battleground state. This suggests turnout is primarily linked to factors affecting the entire electorate, such as the social importance of presidential elections, rather than factors that influence just a portion of the country, such as intensive campaigning and mobilization efforts or a greater chance of casting a decisive vote.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, Conor M. Dowling, and David Doherty. 2009. "Using Battleground States as a Natural Experiment to Test Theories of Voting." Working Paper, ISPS Yale University.

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Do Citizens Respond to Costs and Uncertainty in Survey Questions?

Abstract: One purpose of survey research is to measure respondents' preferences. However, a great deal of evidence shows that responses to survey questions can be affected by seemingly trivial changes in question wording. In this study we take a different approach. Rather than exploring how trivial changes in question wording affect survey responses we examine the consequences of variation in the costs and risks attached to a policy question – factors that should alter responses in a predictable fashion. Our findings indicate that respondents' meaningfully account for these details. Moreover, this responsiveness is apparent across a broad range of respondents – including those with low levels of education.

Citation: Doherty, David, Gerber, Alan S., and Gregory A. Huber. 2009. "Do Citizens Respond to Costs and Uncertainty in Survey Questions?" Working Paper, ISPS Yale University.

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Personality Traits and the Dimensions of Political Ideology

Abstract: We use three large N nationally representative surveys to investigate the relationships between the Five Factor Model personality traits and political ideology. Prior examinations of the relationships between personality traits and political ideology have yielded mixed results. Numerous studies have shown that ideology is associated with the personality traits Openness and Conscientiousness, but the relationships between the other three personality traits (Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Emotional Stability) and ideology are weak and inconsistent across samples. We find that the failure to link these traits to political ideology is an artifact of the coarse measurement of political ideology used in prior work. Once ideology is decomposed into social and economic dimensions there is a strong association between economic attitudes and Agreeableness and Emotional Stability. Our finding that four of the five personality domains are strongly linked to political ideology implies that the role of personality in political attitudes may be substantially stronger and more general than suggested by previous research.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, Shang Ha, Conor M. Dowling, and David Doherty. 2009. "Personality Traits and the Dimensions of Political Ideology." Working Paper, ISPS Yale University (Revised March 2009).

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Reassessing the Effects of Personality on Political Attitudes and Behaviors: Aggregate Relationships and Subgroup Differences

Abstract: Previous research has implicitly assumed a direct relationship between personality and political attitudes and behaviors. Yet, there are theoretical reasons to suspect that these relationships vary depending on one's social context and identity-a suspicion that is strongly confirmed by our results. In this study we leverage the power of an unusually large national survey of registered voters to examine how the relationships between personality and political attitudes and behaviors differ across gender and racial subgroups. We find overwhelming evidence that how personality affects political attitudes and behaviors differs across subgroups. The statistical power provided by this large dataset also allows us to both validate and challenge findings from previous work. Although our primary contribution is empirical, we also demonstrate how this evidence can be used to generate and refine hypotheses regarding the mechanisms whereby personality traits affect politics.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, David Doherty, and Conor M. Dowling. 2009. "Reassessing the Effects of Personality on Political Attitudes and Behaviors: Aggregate Relationships and Subgroup Differences." Working Paper, ISPS Yale University (Revised March 2009).

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Personality and Political Behavior

Abstract: Using data from two recent surveys, we analyze the relationship between personality traits, as measured by the Five-factor Model, and political participation, political ideology, partisanship, and vote choice. We confirm previous findings, including the strong positive association between the personality trait of Openness and liberalism and between Conscientiousness and conservatism, and also report several new results. We merged administrative records containing actual turnout and party registration status with our survey data. Using this novel approach, we confirm that the strong relationship between personality and politics holds when actual behavior is substituted for survey reports. We also measure the association of personality and several forms of political participation, including voting, contributing, and volunteering. The effect of personality on participation is often comparable to, or larger in magnitude than, the effect of factors that are central in earlier models of turnout, such as religious attendance, age, education, and income.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, Connor Raso, and Shang Ha. 2009. "Personality and Political Behavior." Working Paper, ISPS Yale University (Revised February 2009).

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Party Affiliation, Partisanship, and Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment

Abstract: Partisanship is strongly correlated with attitudes and behavior, but it is unclear from this pattern whether partisanship has a causal effect on political behavior and attitudes. We report the results of a field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of party identification. Prior to the February 2008 Connecticut presidential primary, researchers sent a mailing to a random sample of unaffiliated registered voters who, in a pre-treatment survey, leaned toward a political party. The mailing informed the subjects that only voters registered with a party were able to participate in the upcoming presidential primary. Subjects were surveyed again in June 2008. Comparing post-treatment survey responses to subjects' baseline survey responses, we find that those informed of the need to register with a party were more likely to affiliate with a party and subsequently showed stronger partisanship. Further, we find that the treatment group also demonstrated greater concordance than the control group between their pretreatment latent partisanship and their post-treatment reported voting behavior and intentions and evaluations of partisan figures. Thus our treatment, which caused a strengthening of partisan identity, also caused a shift in subjects' candidate preferences and evaluations of salient political figures. This finding is consistent with the claim that partisanship is an active force changing how citizens behave in and perceive the political world.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S., Gregory A. Huber, and Ebonya Washington. 2008. "Party Affiliation, Partisanship, and Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment." Working Paper, ISPS Yale University (Revised December 2008).

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Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments

Abstract: Previous research shows that partisans rate the economy more favorably when their party holds power. There are several explanations for this association, including use of different evaluative criteria, selective perception, selective exposure to information, correlations between economic experiences and partisanship, and partisan bias in survey responses. We use a panel survey around the November 2006 election to measure changes in economic expectations and behavioral intentions after an unanticipated shift in political power. Using this design, we can observe whether the association between partisanship and economic assessments holds when some leading mechanisms thought to bring it about are excluded. We find that there are large and statistically significant partisan differences in how economic assessments and behavioral intentions are revised immediately following the Democratic takeover of Congress. We conclude that this pattern of partisan response suggests partisan differences in perceptions of the economic competence of the parties, rather than alternative mechanisms.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S. and Gregory A. Huber. 2010. "Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments." American Journal of Political Science, Forthcoming.

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Note: Earlier versions of this paper circulated with the subtitle "Results from a natural experiment."

Partisanship and Economic Behavior: Do Partisan Differences in Economic Forecasts Predict Real Economic Behavior?

Abstract: Survey data regularly show that assessments of current and expected future economic performance are more positive when a respondent's partisanship matches that of the President. To determine if this is a survey artifact or something deeper, we investigate whether partisanship is associated with behavioral differences in economic decisions. We construct a new dataset of county level quarterly taxable sales to examine the effect of partisanship on consumption. Consumption change following a Presidential election is strongly correlated with a county's partisan complexion, a result consistent with partisans acting in accordance with the opinions they express in surveys and outside the domain of politics. These results support the expansive role of partisanship in understanding mass politics and help validate surveys as a method for studying political behavior.

Citation: Gerber, Alan S. and Gregory A. Huber. 2009. "Partisanship and Economic Behavior: Do Partisan Differences in Economic Forecasts Predict Real Economic Behavior?" American Political Science Review 103 (3 August): 407-26.

Links: (Download Paper: On-line Journal) (Replication Archive)

Enforcement and Compliance in an Uncertain World: An Experimental Investigation

Abstract: Governments are charged with monitoring citizens' compliance with prescribed behavioral standards and punishing noncompliance. Flaws in information available to enforcing agents, however, may lead to subsequent enforcement errors, eroding government authority and undermining incentives for compliance. We explore these concepts in a laboratory experiment. A "monitor" player makes punishment decisions after receiving noisy signals about other players' choices to contribute to a public good. We find that the possibility of wrongly accusatory signals has a more deleterious effect on contribution levels than the possibility of wrongly exculpatory signals. We trace this across-treatment difference to a "false positives trap": when members of a largely compliant population are sometimes incorrectly accused, some will be unjustly punished if enforcement power is employed, but non-compliant individuals will escape punishment if that power is abdicated. Either kind of error discourages compliance. An additional treatment demonstrates that the functioning of a given enforcement institution may vary, depending on its origins. We consider implications of our findings for theories of deterrence, fairness, and institutional legitimacy.

Citation: Dickson, Eric S., Sanford C. Gordon, and Gregory A. Huber. 2009. "Enforcement and Compliance in an Uncertain World: An Experimental Investigation." Journal of Politics, Forthcoming.

Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF) (On-line Appendix) (Replication Archive)

Voter responses to Challenger Opportunity Costs

Abstract: How do voters evaluate candidates in competitive elections? Gordon et al. (2007) present a model in which the fact of a serious electoral challenge conveys information about the relative competence of the candidates, over and above that conveyed by observable measures of candidate quality. The model predicts differences in voters' responses to candidates depending on challenger opportunity costs. Taken together, these predictions diverge from those associated with an alternative theoretical account. We take advantage of the variation in challenger opportunity costs afforded by state legislative term limits to evaluate the model's predictions. State legislators frequently challenge sitting members of the U.S. House. Those who are term-limited have less to lose from running, whereas those who are not must often risk their current position in pursuit of higher office. Using data on voter attitudes and knowledge about House elections involving state legislators, we find compelling evidence that voters respond to variation in challenger opportunity costs in a manner consistent with the model's predictions.

Citation: Gordon, Sanford Clark, Gregory Alain Huber, and Dimitri Landa. 2009. "Voter responses to Challenger Opportunity Costs." Electoral Studies 28 (1 March): 79-93.

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Note: This paper previously circulated as "Do Costly Challenges Make Voters Believe?"

Testing the Implicit-Explicit Model of Racialized Political Communication

Abstract: The Implicit-Explicit (IE) model of racial priming posits that implicitly racial messages will be more effective than explicitly racial ones in priming racial predispositions in opinion formation. Is the Implicit-Explicit model supported by existing data? In “Racial Priming Revived,” Mendelberg responds to our analysis of a pair of experiments in which we found that “that implicit appeals are no more effective than explicit ones in priming racial resentment in opinion formation.” In this note we demonstrate that the concerns raised about our experiments are unfounded. Further, we show that the existing work supporting the IE model suffers from serious limitations of experimental design and implementation. Cumulatively, we find that the evidence questioning the IE model is far stronger than the evidence that supports it.

Citation: Huber, Gregory A. and John S. Lapinski. 2008. "Testing the Implicit-Explicit Model of Racialized Political Communication." Perspectives on Politics 6 (1 March) 125-134.

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Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising

Abstract: Do presidential campaign advertisements mobilize, inform, or persuade citizens? To answer this question we exploit a natural experiment, the accidental treatment of some individuals living in nonbattleground states during the 2000 presidential election to either high levels or one-sided barrages of campaign advertisements simply because they resided in a media market adjoining a competitive state. We isolate the effects of advertising by matching records of locally broadcast presidential advertising with the opinions of National Annenberg Election Survey respondents living in these uncontested states. This approach remedies the observed correlation between advertising and both other campaign activities and previous election outcomes. In contrast to previous research, we find little evidence that citizens are mobilized by or learn from presidential advertisements, but strong evidence that they are persuaded by them. We also consider the causal mechanisms that facilitate persuasion and investigate whether some individuals are more susceptible to persuasion than others.

Citation: Huber, Gregory A. and Kevin Arceneaux. 2007. "Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising." American Journal of Political Science 51 (4): 957-977.

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Note: This paper previously circulated as "Uncovering the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising."

Directing Retribution: On the Political Control of Lower Court Judges

Abstract: The sentencing decisions of trial judges are constrained by statutory limits imposed by legislatures. At the same time, judges in many states face periodic review, often by the electorate. We develop a model in which the effects of these features of a judge's political landscape on judicial behavior interact. The model yields several intriguing results: First, if legislators care about the proportionality of punishment, judicial discretion increases with their punitiveness. Second, voters are limited by two factors in their ability to make inferences about judicial preferences based on observed sentences: the extent to which judges are willing to pander to retain office and the range of judicial discretion mandated by the legislature. Finally, legislators can sometimes manipulate judicial discretion to aid sufficiently like-minded voters in their efforts to replace ideologically dissimilar judges.

Citation: Huber, Gregory A. and Sanford C. Gordon. 2007. "Directing Retribution: On the Political Control of Lower Court Judges." Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 23 (2 June): 386-420.

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Challenger Entry and Voter Learning

Abstract: We develop a model of strategic interaction between voters and potential electoral challengers to sitting incumbents, in which the very fact of a costly challenge conveys relevant information to voters. Given incumbent failure in office, challenger entry is more likely, but the threat of entry by inferior challengers creates an incentive for citizens to become more politically informed. At the same time, challenges to incumbents who perform well can neutralize a voter's positive assessment of incumbent qualifications. How a voter becomes politically informed can in turn deter challengers of different levels of competence from running, depending on the electoral environment. The model permits us to sharpen our understanding of retrospective voting, the incumbency advantage, and the relationship between electoral competition and voter welfare, while pointing to new interpretations of, and future avenues for, empirical research on elections.

Citation: Gordon, Sanford C., Gregory A. Huber, and Dimitri Landa. 2007. "Challenger Entry and Voter Learning." American Political Science Review 101 (2 May): 303-320.

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Note: This paper previously circulated as "The Informational Value of Challengers."

The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Incumbent Behavior

Abstract: What is the marginal effect of competitiveness on the power of electoral incentives? Addressing this question empirically is difficult because challenges to incumbents are endogenous to their behavior in office. To overcome this obstacle, we exploit a unique feature of Kansas courts: 14 districts employ partisan elections to select judges, while 17 employ noncompetitive retention elections. In the latter, therefore, challengers are ruled out.We find judges in partisan systems sentence more severely than those in retention systems. Additional tests attribute this to the incentive effects of potential competition, rather than the selection of more punitive judges in partisan districts.

Citation: Gordon, Sanford C. and Gregory A. Huber. 2007. "The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Incumbent Behavior." Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2 (2 May): 107-138.

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What to Do (and Not Do) with Multicollinearity in State Politics Research

Abstract: This article analyzes existing scholarship on the diffusion of public policies among the American states, focusing on recent developments in this line of research and suggesting several potential avenues for future work. The analysis is organized around three fundamental questions. First, why does policy diffusion occur? Answering this question will require scholars to devote more attention to concepts such as imitation, emulation, and competition. Second, which political forces facilitate or impede policy diffusion? Answering this question will require scholars to devote more attention to the causal mechanisms at work when states adopt policies like those of other states. Third, what is being diffused? Answering this question will require scholars to think more carefully about the content of public policy, both as an outcome to be explained and as a factor that itself affects the diffusion process.

Citation: Arceneaux, Kevin and Gregory A. Huber. 2007. "What to Do (and Not Do) with Multicollinearity in State Politics Research." State Politics and Policy Quarterly 7 (1 Spring): 81-101.

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The "Race Card" Revisited: Assessing Racial Priming in Policy Contests

Abstract: In The Race Card (2001), Mendelberg finds support for her theory that implicit racial appeals, but not explicit ones, prime racial resentment in opinion formation. She argues that citizens reject explicit appeals, rendering them ineffective, because they violate widespread egalitarian norms. Mendelberg's innovative research, however, suffers from several limitations. We remedy these deficiencies using two randomized experiments with over 6,300 respondents. We confirm that individuals do tend to reject explicit appeals outright, but find that implicit appeals are no more effective than explicit ones in priming racial resentment in opinion formation. In accounting for the differences between previous research and our own, we show that education moderates both the accessibility of racial predispositions and message acceptance. This suggests that the necessary assumptions of Mendelberg's theory hold only for different and exclusive subsets of the general population.

Citation: Huber, Gregory A. and John S. Lapinski. 2006. "The "Race Card" Revisited: Assessing Racial Priming in Policy Contests." American Journal of Political Science 50 (2 April): 421-440.

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Accountability and Coercion: Is Justice Blind when It Runs for Office?

Abstract: Through their power to sentence, trial judges exercise enormous authority in the criminal justice system. In 39 American states, these judges stand periodically for reelection. Do elections degrade their impartiality? We develop a dynamic theory of sentencing and electoral control. Judges discount the future value of retaining office relative to implementing preferred sentences. Voters are largely uninformed about judicial behavior, so even the outcome of a single publicized case can be decisive in their evaluations. Further, voters are more likely to perceive instances of underpunishment than overpunishment. Our theory predicts that elected judges will consequently become more punitive as standing for reelection approaches. Using sentencing data from 22,095 Pennsylvania criminal cases in the 1990s, we find strong evidence for this effect. Additional tests confirm the validity of our theory over alternatives. For the cases we examine, we attribute at least 1,818 to 2,705 years of incarceration to the electoral dynamic.

Citation: Huber, Gregory A. and Sanford C. Gordon. 2004. "Accountability and Coercion: Is Justice Blind when It Runs for Office?" American Journal of Political Science 48 (2 April): 247-263.

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Citizen Oversight and the Electoral Incentives of Criminal Prosecutors

Abstract: Popular wisdom suggests that only by securing convictions can elected prosecutors cultivate the perception that they are tough on crime. This article considers why voters might use conviction rates to evaluate prosecutors and whether justice is subverted as a consequence. Citizens lack information about individual cases and prosecutor behavior. We model voter oversight of prosecutors in light of these difficulties. Voters use the promise of reelection given observed outputs to induce prosecutors to reduce uncertainty through investigation and subsequently to punish the guilty and free the innocent. The model demonstrates that an optimal voter strategy is always to reelect prosecutors who obtain convictions. Most importantly, even voters who most fear wrongful convictions should reward success at trial. Voter attitudes and beliefs instead influence rewards for cases concluded out of court, including plea bargains. Finally, we derive sanctions necessary to prevent prosecutors from suppressing evidence when doing so is politically tempting.

Citation: Gordon, Sanford C. and Gregory A. Huber. 2002. "Citizen Oversight and the Electoral Incentives of Criminal Prosecutors." American Journal of Political Science 46 (2 April): 334-351.

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Neo-Isolationism, Balanced-Budget Conservatism, and the Fiscal Impacts of Immigrants

Abstract: A rise in neo-isolationism in the United States has given encouragement to a new fiscal politics of immigration. Growing anti-immigrant sentiment has coalesced with forces of fiscal conservatism to make immigrants an easy target of budget cuts. Limits on legal alien access to social welfare programs that are contained in the 1996 welfare and immigration reform acts seem motivated not so much by a guiding philosophy of what it means to be a member of American society as by a desire to shrink the size of the federal government and to produce a balanced budget. Even more than in the past, the consequence of a shrinking welfare state is to metamorphose legal immigrants from public charges to windfall gains for the federal treasury.

Citation: Huber, Gregory A. and Thomas J. Espenshade. 1997. "Neo-Isolationism, Balanced-Budget Conservatism, and the Fiscal Impacts of Immigrants." International Migration Review 31 (4 Winter): 1031-1054.

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Implications of the 1996 Welfare and Immigration Reform Acts for US Immigration

Abstract: Major changes in noncitizen eligibility for welfare and in US immigration policy are contained in two pieces of federal legislation signed into law in 1996. The first, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, reforms the entitlement policy for poor families and imposes new limits on alien access to welfare benefits and other social services. The second, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, strengthens efforts to combat illegal immigration and creates higher standards of financial self-sufficiency for the admission of sponsored legal immigrants. The authors suggest that these reforms will produce unintended, and possibly undesirable, consequences. They argue in particular that the 1996 reform measures, instead of preserving legal immigration and discouraging illegal immigration, are more likely to reduce the former and expand incentives for the latter. In addition, the Personal Responsibility Act creates added pressures for eligible legal immigrants to apply for US citizenship. To the extent that higher rates of naturalization were unanticipated by reformers of welfare policy, the actual cost savings attributable to reduced benefits for noncitizens will be smaller than expected.

Citation: Espenshade, Thomas J., Jessica L. Baraka, and Gregory A. Huber. 1997. "Implications of the 1996 Welfare and Immigration Reform Acts for US Immigration." Population and Development Review 23 (4 December): 769-801.

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The Political Economy of Prosecution

Abstract: We argue that contemporary advances in the field of political economy, particularly those concerning the subject of delegated authority, can provide a unifying framework for analyzing the behavior and political context of criminal prosecutors in the United States. This perspective, which considers a number of tradeoffs associated with mechanisms for compensating, reviewing, and constraining the discretion of public officials generally, is well-suited for studying these prosecutors, the vast majority of whom are elected but whose accountability is frequently called into question. Prosecutors serve in a variety of roles that necessitate interaction with other parties: as subordinates of voters (or other elected officials), superiors of subordinate prosecutors, collaborators in cooperative relationships with other officials in law enforcement and courtroom communities, and adversaries of defendants. Much of the behavior of prosecutors examined by scholars employing disparate disciplinary approaches may be explained with reference to (1) the extent of conflict between the prosecutor's motives and the motives of those other actors, and (2) the degree to which information is unevenly distributed among those actors. A political economy perspective is especially well-suited for integrating these features of the prosecutor's environment into a coherent account. To illustrate the value of this unifying approach, we apply this perspective to three areas in the existing literature on prosecutors: plea bargaining, courtroom communities, and public corruption prosecution.

Citation: Gordon, Sanford C. and Gregory A. Huber. 2009. “The Political Economy of Prosecution.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 5: 8.1-8.22.

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Contingency, Politics, and the Nature of Inquiry: Why Non-events Matter

Abstract: Contingent events are probabilistic. Acknowledging that realized contingencies alter observed political outcomes, however, does little to advance the systematic study of politics. This paper suggests that political science should focus on understanding ho

Citation: Huber, Gregory A. 2007. "Contingency, Politics, and the Nature of Inquiry: Why Non-events Matter." In Political Contingency: Studying the Unexpected, the Accidental, and the Unforeseen, eds. Ian Shapiro and Sonu Bedi. New York: NYU Press

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