Political Economy Research Seminar
Decoupling Taste-Based versus Statistical Discrimination in Elections
Francesco Trebbi (Columbia), joint with Amanda de Albuquerque, Frederico Finan, Anubhav Jha, and Laura Karpuska
Tuesday 12 May 2026 14:00 - 15:30
Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as in person or as hybrid (online and in person) events. Please check our website listings and Twitter feed @STICERD_LSE for updates.
Unless otherwise specified, in-person seminars are open to the public. Please ensure you have informed the event contact as early as possible.
Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom if the event is hybrid.
About this event
We present a methodology for decoupling taste-based versus statistical discrimination in political behavior. We combine a flexible empirical model of voting, featuring vertical and horizontal candidate differentiation in gender, ability, and policy positions, with a large-scale micro-targeted electoral experiment aimed at increasing female candidate vote shares. Our structural econometric approach allows to separately identify preference parameters driving taste-based discrimination and beliefs parameters driving statistical discrimination through expectations about ability and policy positions of female politicians. Our application to Brazilian municipal elections uncovers substantial levels of taste-based and statistical discrimination. Counterfactual political campaigns show promise in reducing both.
The Political Economy Research Seminar is jointly organised by the Departments of Economics, of Government, and of Management, with financial support from STICERD.
It brings together scholars across multiple departments at the LSE and from nearby universities. The series consists of talks by external and internal faculty presenting theoretical or empirical papers on a wide range of topics associated with political economy.
These seminars are held on Tuesdays in term time at 14.00-15.30, in room MAR 6.33, unless specified otherwise.
Seminar coordinators: Timothy Besley (Economics), Tak-Huen Chau (Government), Stephane Wolton (Government), Noam Yuchtman (Management)
Contact gov.comms@lse.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list or for further information.