Research

My research was primarily within the PRECEDE consortium, follow its website and social media for more information.

Working papers

(Click the title for abstract)

School Performance and Retrospective Voting: Evidence from Local Elections in Denmark R&R

with Nicola Maaser

This paper studies whether voters in Denmark hold local politicians accountable for the performance of local schools. Using register data and polling-station-level voting records, we study this effect for Danish municipal elections in 2013 and 2017. We find robust evidence of retrospective voting in 2013. In 2017, however, incumbents' electoral success was independent of changes in school performance. Moreover, our results for 2013 show that the effect is strongest for relatively richer and more educated voters, in areas with more intensive political competition, and applies only to right-wing incumbents.

Publications

(Click the title for abstract)

Populism and Inequality: Does Reality Match the Populist Rhetoric? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 207, March 2023, 1-17

with Andrea Sáenz de Viteri, Martin Rode, Christian Bjørnskov 

Populists since the Roman Republic have argued for redistribution from an elite to ordinary people and depicted themselves as the true representative of the ‘people’. However, very little research has explored whether populists actually affect the distribution of income or consumption when in power. The present paper therefore asks, whether populists administrations actually achieve redistribution. After a short theoretical discussion, our empirical strategy combines new data on populism in Latin America and the Caribbean with information on income and consumption inequality since 1970. Estimates suggest that populist governments in the region generally have achieved no redistribution, leading us to conclude that the redistributive aims of populists are mainly empty rhetoric.


Practical Examples for the Basics of Mathematics, Logic and Statistics for Sociology and Other Social Sciences, Karolinum, Charles University Press, 2019 & 2021 (2nd ed.) 

(In Czech: “Základy matematiky, logiky a statistiky pro sociologii a ostatní společenské vědy v příkladech”), with J. Hendl, M. Moldan, T. Ranošová, J. Siegl, and J. Žáček

Introductory textbook for courses at Institutes of Political Science and Sociological Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University

Official annotation of the 2nd edition: 

This textbook, intended for students of fields which are not primarily focused on mathematics, covers the basics of university mathematics, logic, sets, Boolean algebra and probability theory. The second half of the book focuses on descriptive and inductive statistics. All chapters include exercises with solutions. Students can practice and verify their knowledge of the covered material using multiple choice questions and many other types of exercises with key. The book also includes an overview of formulas. No previous knowledge is expected, however, the exposition sometimes builds on mathematical skills covered in elementary and secondary school.

Smoking Czechs: Modelling Tobacco Consumption and Taxation, Prague Economic Papers, 2019, 28(1), 3-29. 

with Karel Janda

(pre PhD - based on my BA thesis)

We model the future tobacco consumption, size of smoking population and governmental tax revenues in the Czech Republic. The main model assumption states that smokers determine their future tobacco consumption behaviour as adolescents. Further assumptions make the model applicable to the data from the Czech National Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Future teenage smoking rates and average consumption are the inputs to the model; consumption growth coefficients for each age category are estimated using zero-inflated negative binomial regression. Several scenarios are built to model possible developments, including extreme cases. All our scenarios show that all model outcomes are going to grow until 2028 in a very similar pattern. In particular, the projected number of smokers in 2028 is by 4-8% higher than in 2013, the total daily tobacco consumption and tax revenue by 7-26%. This increase is induced by ageing of large birth cohorts.