Research

Work in Progress

• “Should I Mail or Should I Go: Insights From a One-Time All-Postal Runoff Election” (with V. Lindlacher)
  [Latest Version]
  Abstract: We investigate how reducing information costs due to forced experimentation with postal voting affects voting behavior. Leveraging a natural experiment during the Bavarian 2020 Mayoral Elections, we employ an event study design. We find a transitory increase in total turnout and a persistent substitution from in-person to postal voting. Notably, municipalities with a higher turnout in the past show a larger effect. Investigating the distribution of the information costs shows an age gradient with the highest information costs for the oldest age group. The conservative governing party (CSU) gains persistently from higher postal turnout and other conservative parties’ in-person voters.

• “Administrative Failure, State Capacity, and Democratic Exclusion: Evidence from Berlin’s 2021 Election Breakdown”
  [Latest Version]
  Abstract: This paper studies the long-run effects of non-strategic administrative failures on voter participation. I exploit a natural experiment from Berlin’s 2021 elections, in which hundreds of precincts experienced ballot shortages, multi-hour queues, and unlawful polling closures. Using precinct-level administrative data and a stacked event study design, I show that precincts exposed to administrative failures in the 2021 Berlin election experienced a 1.8 percentage points (2.4%) decline in turnout across three subsequent elections over the next four years. The drop is concentrated in in-person voting and only partially offset by increases in postal participation in subsequent elections. Effects are largest among young voters, welfare recipients, and residents with migration backgrounds. Survey evidence suggests two mechanisms: disrupted civic habit formation and short-term erosion of institutional trust.

• “Environmental Shocks and Political Assimilation: Evidence from Movers and Flood Exposure in North Carolina”
  Abstract: This paper examines how major floods reshape partisan assimilation among internal migrants. I link the universe of North Carolina voter-registration records (2009-2024) to high-resolution flood maps and track approximately 170,000 one-time cross-county movers. A dual-clock stacked event study - aligned to both relocation and Hurricane Florence (2018) - shows that flood exposure differentially changes the dynamics of partisan assimilation. Republican movers who had already settled in flooded destinations display a sustained acceleration in alignment with local partisan majorities, whereas Democratic movers exhibit only a short-lived adjustment followed by partial reversion or shifts into Unaffiliated registration. Pre-move exposure has no comparable effect, indicating that post-move shocks act through the destination context rather than selection. The results suggest that environmental disasters alter the path - rather than the level - of political assimilation, operating through a combination of identity updating and social signaling mechanisms.

Policy Papers

• “Faktoren von Familiengründung, Kinderlosigkeit und Kinderreichtum in Ostdeutschland”
  (with K. Heisig and T. Scheurer), 2023, ifo Dresden Studie 89
• “Was Ersteltern von Personen ohne Kinder in Ostdeutschland unterscheidet”
  (with K. Heisig), 2023, ifo Dresden berichtet 31
• “Faktoren der Kinderlosigkeit in Ostdeutschland”
  (with K. Heisig and T. Scheurer), 2022, ifo Dresden berichtet 29