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Number of stories in Lexis-Nexis with words “Barney Frank and “prostitute” that were published between August 25 and October 4, 1989: 302. The percentage of people who answered “no” or “I don’t know” or gave an incorrect answer when asked “Do you happen to know who Barney Frank is?” in an Oct. 5-8, 1989 Times […]

Jeremy Peters discusses the GOP’s ad campaign against Obama, which is well underway.  I find this reporting necessary and valuable, but Peters misses an opportunity here: But going negative so early also carries substantial risks. One is that many voters are not yet paying much attention to the campaign and will not do so until […]

In response to the lively debate between the New York Times and The Monkey Cage (1, 2, 3), we are pleased to welcome Victoria Shineman, a Ph.D. candidate in NYU’s Politics Department who is writing a dissertation on the effects of compulsory voting. In this guest post, she offers both a clarification of how participation […]

As Gingrich soars in the polls, the libertarian stalwart plummets.

The ten Fortune 100 companies that lobbied on 50 or more bills since 2008 paid an average effective tax rate of 17.1 percent in 2010; the ten companies that lobbied on between 25 and 49 bills paid an average effective tax rate of 18.0 percent; the remaining publicly-traded companies paid an average effective tax rate […]

Apparently I’m not the only person to question some of the political writing in the London Review of Books. But, the latest fight between author Niall Ferguson (encountered on this blog several years ago) and reviewer Pankaj Mishra (link from Tyler Cowen) is fascinating. Usually when I see one of these exchanges of letters, it’s […]

Monkey Cage contributor Erica Chenowth and Maria Stephan’s book was just named to The Guardian’s “Best Books of 2011,” thanks to Steven Pinker.  He writes: Erica Chenoweth and Maria J Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works (Columbia). Gandhi was right, not just morally but empirically: nonviolent resistance is three times more effective than violence. Congratulations, Erica!

I’ve heard all sorts of scare stories of what it’s like to speak in an academic economics seminar: they’re rude, they interrupt constantly, they don’t let you get through three slides in an hour, etc. But whenever I’ve actually spoke in an economics department, the people have been polite and well-behaved, really it’s been like […]

Always check your evidence.