Harvard Kennedy School faculty disseminate their research in working publications and papers that contribute to public knowledge and fuel policy innovation. This list features recent faculty publications, including journal articles, books, edited volumes, research papers, and public testimony.
Faculty Publications
Baum, Matthew A., Adam J. Berinsky, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Joohye Jeong, Zachary Markovich, and Teppei Yamamoto. "Dynamic Persuasion: Decay and Accumulation of Partisan Media Persuasion." March 2025.
Buzas, Zoltan, and Lotem Bassan-Nygate. "Human Rights Organizations and Shaming Tactics: Using Anti-Racist Cues to Hone the Messaging." Keough School Policy Brief Series, 2024.
Summerfield, Christopher, ... Mathias Risse, et al. "How will advanced AI systems impact democracy?" 27 August 2024.
DeLuca, Kevin, Daniel J. Moskowitz, and Benjamin Schneer. "A Drag on the Ticket? Estimating Top-of-the-Ticket Effects on Down-Ballot Races." July 19, 2024.
Gaebler, Johann D., and Sharad Goel. "A Simple, Statistically Robust Test of Discrimination." 9 July 2024.
Fung, Archon, Max Kiefel, and Nick Chedli Carter. "From Crisis to Opportunity: How the City of Portland Embraced Democratic Innovation." Ash Center Occasional Papers Series, June 2024.
Kunzman, Hannah and Danielle Allen. "Beyond the Sound and Fury: The Landscape of Curricular Contestation in Texas." Ash Center Occasional Papers Series, June 2024.
Gaudette, Jennifer, and Justin de Benedictis-Kessner. "Local Money: Evaluating the Effects of Municipal Campaign Contributions on Housing Policy Outcomes." April 23, 2024.
Gaebler, Johann D., Sharad Goel, Aziz Huq, Prasanna Tambe. "Auditing the Use of Language Models to Guide Hiring Decisions." April 3, 2024.
Allen, Danielle, Sarah Hubbard, Woojin Lim, Allison Stanger, Shlomit Wagman, Kinney Zalesne. "A Roadmap for Governing AI: Technology Governance and Power Sharing Liberalism." Ash Center Occasional Paper Series, January 2024.
de Benedictis Kessner, Justin. "The Electoral and Policy Effects of Election Timing in City and County Government." December 23, 2023.
de Benedictis Kessner, Justin. "Where the Sidewalk Ends: How Participation Contributes to Inequity in Basic Government Service Provision." December 23, 2023.
Grossman, Joshua, Julian Nyarko, and Sharad Goel. "Reconciling Legal and Empirical Conceptions of Disparate Impact." .
Liu, Naijia, Matthew A. Baum, Adam J. Berinsky, Allison J.B. Chaney, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Andy Guess, Dean Knox, Christopher Lucas, Rachel Mariman, and Brandon M. Stewart. "Algorithmic recommendations have limited effects on polarization: A naturalistic experiment on YouTube." September 18, 2023.
Jung, Jongbin, Sam Corbett-Davies, Johann D. Gaebler, Ravi Shroff, and Sharad Goel. "Mitigating Included - and Omitted - Variable Bias in Estimates of Disparate Impact." .
Acharya, Avidit, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen. "Slavery, Politics, and Causality." August 24, 2023.
LegalBench: A Collaboratively Built Benchmark for Measuring Legal Reasoning in Large Language Models
Guha, Neel, Sharad Goel, et al. "LegalBench: A Collaboratively Built Benchmark for Measuring Legal Reasoning in Large Language Models." August 23, 2023.
Cunningham, Edward, and Yunxin Li. "China’s Most Generous: Examining Trends in Contemporary Chinese Philanthropy." The Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia’s China Philanthropy Project, August 2023.
Coots, Madison, Soroush Saghafian, David Kent, and Sharad Goel. "Reevaluating the Role of Race and Ethnicity in Diabetes Screening." June 2023.
Baum, Matthew A., James Druckman, Katherine Ognyanova, and Jonathan Schulman. "Severe Depressive Symptoms Exacerbate the Relationship Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Voting for Election Doubters." IPR Working Paper Series, June 12, 2023.
Zanger-Tishler, Michael, Julian Nyarko, and Sharad Goel. "Risk Scores, Label Bias, and Everything but the Kitchen Sink." .
Automated Court Date Reminders Reduce Warrants for Arrest: Evidence from a Text Messaging Experiment
Chohlas-Wood, Alex, Madison Coots, Joe Nudell, Julian Nyarko, Emma Brunskill, Todd Rogers, and Sharad Goel. "Automated Court Date Reminders Reduce Warrants for Arrest: Evidence from a Text Messaging Experiment." .
Rozema, Kyle, Daniel Epps, Adam Chilton, and Maya Sen. "The Endgame of Court-Packing." Washington University in St. Louis School for Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series, May 4, 2023.
Koenecke, Allison, Eric Giannella, Robb Willer, and Sharad Goel. "Popular Support for Balancing Equity and Efficiency in Resource Allocation: A Case Study in Online Advertising to Increase Welfare Program Awareness." April 17, 2023.
Muhammad, Khalil, and Angel Cardo Rodriguez. "Antiracist Institutional Change in Healthcare." Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project, Ash Center for Democratic Governanance and Innovation, March 2023.
Democratic mayors have no effect on crime, but do reduce the Black share of arrests for petty crimes
de Benedictis Kessner, Justin, Matthew Harvey, Daniel Jones, and Christopher Warshaw. "Democratic mayors have no effect on crime, but do reduce the Black share of arrests for petty crimes." January 23, 2023.
Gilman, Hollie Russon, Archon Fung, and Mark Schmitt. "Designing for Community Engagement: Toward More Equitable Civic Participation in the Federal Regulatory Process." Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation; New America, December 2021.
Hankinson, Michael and Justin de Benedictis Kessner. "How Self-Interest and Symbolic Politics Shape the Effectiveness of Compensation for Nearby Housing Development." November 18, 2022.
Safarpour, Alauna, and Matthew Baum. "Pandemic, Governors, and Public Opinion: The Effect of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths on Public Support for America’s Governors." October 13, 2022.
Wittenberg, Chloe, Matthew A. Baum, Adam J. Berinsky, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, and Teppei Yamamoto. "Media Measurement Matters: Estimating the Persuasive Effects of Partisan Media with Survey and Behavioral Data." September 26, 2022.
Saich, Anthony. "What to Expect from the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party." Ash Center Policy Briefs Series, September 2022.
Fung, Archon, Hollie Russon Gilman, and Mark Schmitt. "Strengthening Models of Civic Engagement: Community-Informed Approaches to Inclusive and Equitable Decision-Making." Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, July 2022.
Harris, Allison P., and Maya Sen. "How Judges’ Professional Experience Impacts Case Outcomes: An Examination of Public Defenders and Criminal Sentencing." May 6, 2022.
Brodnax, NaLette, Ji Su Yoo, and Latanya Sweeney. "State Policies and the US Election Franchise: A Multistage Approach." American Political Science Association Preprints, April 15, 2022.
Eaves, David, Leonie Bolte, Omayra Chuquihuara, and Surabhi Hodigere. "Best Practices for the Governance of Digital Public Goods." Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, April 2022.
Evaluating the generalizability of the COVID States survey — a large-scale, non-probability survey
Radford, Jason, Jon Green, Alexi Quintana, Alauna Safarpour, Matthew D Simonson, Matthew Baum, David Lazer, Katherine Ognyanova, James Druckman, Roy Perlis, Mauricio Santillana, and John Della Volpe. "Evaluating the generalizability of the COVID States survey — a large-scale, non-probability survey." March 7, 2022.
Chohlas-Wood, Alex, Madison Coots, Henry Zhu, Emma Brunskill, and Sharad Goel. "Learning to be Fair: A Consequentialist Approach to Equitable Decision-Making." February 2022.
Domash, Alex, and Lawrence H. Summers. "How Tight Are U.S. Labor Markets?" NBER Working Paper Series, February 2022.
Safarpour, Alauna, Alexi Quintana, David Lazer, Roy Perlis, Matthew Baum, Katherine Ognyanova, Anjuli Shere, et al. "The COVID States Project #78: American mask use and CDC guidance." The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public's Policy Preferences Across States, January 15, 2022.
Trujillo, Kristin L., Matthew Baum, David Lazer, Katherine Ognyanova, James Druckman, Roy Perlis, Mauricio Santillana, et al. "The COVID States Project #77: Healthcare workers' perception of COVID-19 misinformation." The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public's Policy Preferences Across States, January 13, 2022.
Eaves, David and Sechi Kailasa. "The 2021 Digital Services Convening." Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, January 2022.
de Benedictis Kessner, Justin, and Kathryn Carlson. "What the Next Mayor Needs to Do About Boston's Transportation Crisis." Boston Area Research Initiative White Paper Series, September 2021.
Risse, Mathias. "Artificial Intelligence and the Past, Present, and Future of Democracy." Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, 7/28/2021.
Baum, Matthew A., James Druckman, Matthew D Simonson, Jennifer Lin, and Roy Perlis. "What I Saw on the Road to Insurrection: Internal Political Efficacy, Conspiracy Beliefs and the Effect of Depression on Support for the January 6th Storming of the Capitol." July 2021.
Chohlas-Wood, Alex, Marissa Gerchick, Sharad Goel, Aziz Huq, Amy Shoemaker, Ravi Shroff, and Keniel Yao. "Empirical Approaches to Identify Systemic Discrimination in Policing." .
Tomkins, Sabina, Keniel Yao, Johann Gaebler, Tobias Konitzer, David Rothschild, Marc Meredith, and Sharad Goel. "Blocks as geographic discontinuities: The effect of polling place assignment on voting." May 2021.
Risse, Mathias. "Data as Collectively Generated Patterns: Making Sense of Data Ownership." Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, April 2021.
Perlis, Roy H., Mauricio Santillana, Katherine Ognyanova, Jon Green, James Druckman, David Lazer, and Matthew A. Baum. "Comparison of post-COVID depression and major depressive disorder." MedRxiv (2021).
Perlis, Roy H., Jon Green, Mauricio Santillana, David Lazer, Katherine Ognyanova, Matthew Simonson, Matthew A. Baum et al. "Persistence of symptoms up to 10 months following acute COVID-19 illness." MedRxiv (2021).
Shattuck, John and Mathias Risse. "Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States: Equal Access to Public Goods and Services." Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, March 2021.