Allan Drazen

About

Allan Drazen is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. He received his S.B. in 1972 and his Ph.D. in 1976 from MIT. His primary field of interest is Political Economy, and he has also worked in Macroeconomics and International Economics. His current research includes motivations of political leaders, electoral economics, and campaign contributions and lobbying. He teaches graduate courses in Political Economy and Macroeconomics, as well as an undergraduate Honors course on fairness and inequality in economics and politics.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Law
• Biology
• Business
• Philosophy
• Economics
• Market economy
• Data science
• Law and economics

Selected publications

• Elections, leaders, and the composition of government spending

  Journal of Public Economics · 2012-09-24 · 134 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Political Economy in Macroeconomics

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2018-06-05 · 50 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A Theory of Small Campaign Contributions

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2018-03-01 · 32 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  We propose a theory of small campaign contributions driven by an electoral motive, i.e., the desire to influence election outcomes. Though small donors take as given the actions of others, strategic interactions induce patterns consistent with empirical findings, e.g., election closeness and underdog effects. We also study different forms of campaign finance laws, and show why caps should be combined with a progressive tax on contributions. Next, we introduce large donors and show that several c…

  PublisherDOI

• A STRUCTURAL MODEL OF ELECTORAL ACCOUNTABILITY

  International Economic Review · 2018-10-08 · 23 citations

  article

  Abstract This article proposes a structural approach to measuring the effects of electoral accountability. We estimate a political agency model with imperfect information in order to identify and quantify discipline and selection effects, using data on U.S. governors. We find that the possibility of reelection provides a significant incentive for incumbents to exert effort, that is, a disciplining effect. We also find a positive but weaker selection effect. According to our model, the widely use…

  PublisherDOI

• Journal-based replication of experiments: An application to “Being Chosen to Lead”

  Journal of Public Economics · 2021 · 13 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Recent large-scale replications of social science experiments provide important information on the reliability of experimental research. Unfortunately, there exist no mechanisms to ensure replications are done. We propose such a mechanism: journal-based replication, in which the publishing journal insists on a replication attempt between acceptance and publication. We discuss what we learned from a proof-of-concept journal-based replication at the Journal of Public Economics. Our experience indi…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Understanding the Behavior of Policymakers: Accountability, Other-Regarding Behavior and Fiduciary Motivation

  NSF · $290k · 2015–2021

• Political Budget Cycles

  NSF · $168k · 2004–2010

Frequent coauthors

• Laurent Bouton

  Center for Economic and Policy Research

  124 shared

• Micaël Castanheira

  123 shared

• Adi Brender

  34 shared

• Erkut Özbay

  University of Maryland, College Park

  19 shared

• Marcela Eslava

  Universidad de Los Andes

  19 shared

• Peter Isard

  14 shared

• Stefan Hubrich

  TU Dresden

  14 shared

• Nuno Limão

  Georgetown University

  12 shared

Education

• Other

  MIT

  1972

• Ph.D.

  MIT

  1976

Awards & honors

• Three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (2015)

Similar researchers at University of Maryland, College Park

• John C. Haltiwangerh-99
• Maureen Cropperh-61
• Sebastian Galianih-54