working papers
2025
- Making, Updating, and Querying Causal Models with CausalQueries2025
The R package ‘CausalQueries‘ can be used to make, update, and query causal models defined on binary nodes. Users provide a causal statement of the form ‘X -> M <- Y; M <-> Y‘ which is interpreted as a structural causal model over a collection of binary nodes. Then ‘CausalQueries‘ allows users to (1) identify the set of principal strata—causal types—required to characterize all possible causal relations between nodes that are consistent with the causal statement (2) determine a set of parameters needed to characterize distributions over these causal types (3) update beliefs over distributions of causal types, using a ‘stan‘ model plus data, and (4) pose a wide range of causal queries of the model, using either the prior distribution, the posterior distribution, or a user-specified candidate vector of parameters.
@unpublished{cq_2025, author = {Tietz, Till and Medina, Lily and Syunyaev, Georgiy and Humphreys, Macartan}, title = {Making, Updating, and Querying Causal Models with CausalQueries}, journal = {Under review}, year = {2025}, status = {WP}, proj = {inference}, keywords = {methods, causal inference}, proj.1 = {inference} } - Political salience and regime resilienceSebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Steffen Huck, and Macartan Humphreys2025
We study a version of a canonical model of attacks against political regimes where agents have an expressive utility for taking political stances that is scaled by the salience of political decision-making. Increases in political salience can have divergent effects on regime stability depending on costs of being on the losing side. When regimes have weak sanctioning mechanisms, middling levels of salience can pose the greatest threat, as regime supporters are insufficiently motivated to act on their preferences and regime opponents are sufficiently motivated to stop conforming. Our results speak to the phenomenon of charged debates about democracy by identifying conditions under which heightened interest in political decision-making can pose a threat to democracy in and of itself.
@unpublished{huck_2025, author = {Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Sebastian and Huck, Steffen and Humphreys, Macartan}, title = {Political salience and regime resilience}, year = {2025}, status = {WP}, proj = {protests}, keywords = {democracy, theory, vertical contestations}, proj.1 = {protests} } - JCIBounds on the fixed effects estimand in the presence of heterogeneous assignment2025
In many contexts, treatment assignment probabilities differ across strata or are correlated with some observable third variables. Regression with covariate adjustment is often used to account for these features. It is known however that in the presence of heterogeneous treatment effects this approach does not yield unbiased estimates of average treatment effects. But it is not well known how estimates generated in this way diverge from unbiased estimates of average treatment effects. Here I show that biases can be large, even in large samples. However I also find conditions under which the usual approach provides interpretable estimates and I identify a monotonicity condition that ensures that least squares estimates lie between estimates of the average treatment effects for the treated and the average treatment effects for the controls. The monotonicity condition can be satisfied for example with Roy-type selection and is guaranteed in the two stratum case.
@unpublished{ols_2025, author = {Humphreys, Macartan}, title = {Bounds on the fixed effects estimand in the presence of heterogeneous assignment}, journal = {forthcoming, Journal of Causal Inference}, year = {2025}, status = {WP}, proj = {inference}, keywords = {methods, causal inference}, proj.1 = {inference} } - Outgroup AvoidanceChagai M. Weiss, Alexandra Siegel, and Alexandra Scacco2025
Encouraging engagement with outgroup perspectives is a popular strategy to improve intergroup relations. But in deeply divided societies, individuals often actively avoid outgroup members. In a Facebook field experiment, we embedded Palestinian posts in Jewish Israelis Facebook timelines for a period of 14 days. We find no effect on attitudes toward the outgroup and a modest decrease in subsequent consumption of outgroup content, a pattern we attribute to participants avoidance of constructive engagement. To better understand this avoidance, we conducted a set of survey-embedded behavioral tasks. Results suggest that outgroup avoidance online is widespread, associated with outgroup prejudice, explained by feelings of discomfort, anger, mistrust in outgroups, and pessimism, and challenging to overcome. Our findings indicate that avoidance is a barrier to constructive intergroup engagement in naturalistic settings, rendering many interventions that may be effective in controlled environments difficult to implement or scale in practice.
@unpublished{scacco_2025, author = {Weiss, Chagai M. and Siegel, Alexandra and Scacco, Alexandra}, title = {Outgroup Avoidance}, journal = {forthcoming, The Journal of Politics}, year = {2025}, status = {WP}, proj = {media}, keywords = {horizontal contestation}, proj.1 = {covid} } - Intergroup Contact, Empathy Training, and Refugee-Native Integration: Evidence from a Field Experiment in LebanonSalma Mousa, Lennard Naumann, and Alexandra Scacco2025
Can intergroup contact improve relations between refugees and host communities? If so, are there added returns to combining contact and empathy education? Does either approach unlock spillover effects among household members? To answer these questions, we conduct a field experiment that brings together Syrian refugees and Lebanese nationals in three localities in Lebanon, where refugees make up a quarter of the population. Working with a Lebanese NGO, we randomly assign Lebanese and Syrian youth participants to an ethnically heterogeneous or homogeneous classroom for a 12-week psycho-social support program. We further randomize whether participants received additional empathy education or a placebo curriculum focused on health and nutrition. We find that contact is more effective at teaching conflict resolution, but reduces the willingness to engage in further contact, as measured by attending an event celebrating the ougroups culture. By contrast, empathy education decreases prejudice without negative effects on behavior. We do not find clear interaction effects of contact and empathy training, nor significant spillover effects among parents. The results point to the different trade-offs associated with both contact and empathy interventions in fragile settings.
@unpublished{scacco_empathy_2025, author = {Mousa, Salma and Naumann, Lennard and Scacco, Alexandra}, title = {Intergroup Contact, Empathy Training, and Refugee-Native Integration: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Lebanon}, year = {2025}, status = {WP}, proj = {socialcont}, keywords = {horizontal contestation}, proj.1 = {socialcont} }
2022
- The Myth of the Misinformed Migrant? Survey Insights from Nigeria’s Irregular Migration Epicenter2022
Policy projections and recent research suggest that large numbers of irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa will continue to attempt to make their way to Europe over the next few decades. In response, European countries have made and continue to make significant investments in information campaigns designed to discourage irregular African migration. Despite the ubiquity of these campaigns, we know relatively little about potential migrants’ prior knowledge and beliefs. To what extent are potential migrants actually misinformed about the migration journey and destination countries? We bring representative survey data collected in Benin City, Nigeria - a center of irregular migration - to bear on this question. Three key insights emerge. First, potential migrants are better informed about destination contexts than is commonly assumed, and if anything appear to underestimate the economic benefits of life in Europe. Second, they are relatively less well informed about specific risks and other features of the irregular migration journey. Third, we find evidence of optimism bias. Respondents are generally hopeful when asked about Nigerian irregular migrants’ prospects of being able to reach and stay in Europe, but they are especially optimistic when asked about their own chances. Taken together, these findings suggest that existing migration-related information campaigns, and with them a central component of migration policies in countries across the Global North, rest on shaky foundations. Most problematically, our study suggests that campaigns risk becoming misinformation campaigns, particularly when they suggest to potential migrants that they are overestimating the benefits of living in Europe.
@unpublished{scacco_beber_2022, author = {Scacco, Alexandra and Beber, Bernd}, title = {The Myth of the Misinformed Migrant? Survey Insights from Nigeria's Irregular Migration Epicenter}, year = {2022}, doi = {doi:10.4419/96973121}, status = {WP}, proj = {irr}, keywords = {exclusion}, proj.1 = {irr} }
2021
- Identity in Partition: Evidence from a Panel Survey in SudanAlexandra Scacco, Nermd Beber, and Philip Roessler2021
How are social identities affected by significant political change, and to what extent do migrants adopt linguistic, religious, regional, or tribal identity markers prevalent in their host communities? We investigate these questions in the context of Sudans partition, which led to the creation of South Sudan in July 2011. Partition entailed both the relocation of a large number of Southerners to South Sudan and a sharp deterioration in the treatment of minorities, including Southerners, remaining in northern Sudan. The paper presents data from a panel survey of 1,380 respondents conductedin pre- and post-partition Sudan and South Sudan in 2010 and 2011, complemented by in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in 2012. This is to our knowledge the only systematic data collected on Sudanese attitudes and self-identification at the time of partition and the first time such a panel has been constructed during a countrys partition. We present statistical evidence to show that subjects self-identifications are surprisingly malleable and responsive to context. This affects both the activation and ranking of preexisting identity components (e.g. whether subjects prioritize their tribal or national identities) and the adoption of entirely new characteristics (e.g. Christians self-identifying as Muslims). We show that some identity markers (such as language) are more malleable than others (such as religion), but overall subjects are willing to adapt and redefine themselves in the pursuit of security and well-being. This is true for both Southerners and other peripheral minorities trying to pass as members of dominant groups in Sudan as well as relocated Southerners trying to settle in South Sudan. Contrary to fears expressed by members of dominant groups, these vulnerable individuals do not refuse to integrate, but actively seek to adopt dominant identity patterns.
@unpublished{scacco_identity_sudan_2021, author = {Scacco, Alexandra and Beber, Nermd and Roessler, Philip}, title = {Identity in Partition: Evidence from a Panel Survey in Sudan}, year = {2021}, status = {WP}, proj = {sudan}, keywords = {horizontal contestations}, proj.1 = {sudan} } - Coping with Partition: Wealth, Security, and Migration in Post-Separation SudanAlexandra Scacco, Bernd Beber, and Philip Roessler2021
In January 2011, the people of Southern Sudan voted to secede from Sudan, and the country divided into two states six months later. Given this momentous shift in Sudans political boundaries, this paper asks how Southerners located in northern Sudan decided to structure their lives in the shadow of partition. We ask under what conditions Southerners living in the North at the time of partition were more or less likely to migrate to newly created South Sudan. We find that both the poorest and the wealthiest Southerners are most likely to relocate swiftly, while middle income households depend more heavily on economic opportunities absent in the South and are therefore more likely to resist migration, in spite of the severe security risks associated with remaining in the North. As such, migration decisions in the shadow of Sudans partition reflect a stark trade-off between security and prosperity for a highly vulnerable minority group. The paper analyzes data from a unique, original panel survey of 1380 respondents drawn from pre- and post-referendum Khartoum and post-referendum South Sudan, including 204 Southerners. The first round of the survey was implemented by the authors in the fall of 2010, and the second round was completed in the fall of 2011.
@unpublished{scacco_sudan_2021, author = {Scacco, Alexandra and Beber, Bernd and Roessler, Philip}, title = {Coping with Partition: Wealth, Security, and Migration in Post-Separation Sudan}, year = {2021}, status = {WP}, proj = {sudan}, keywords = {horizontal contestations}, proj.1 = {sudan} }
2020
- Political and social correlates of covid-19 mortality2020
What political and social features of states help explain the distribution of reported Covid-19 deaths? We survey existing works on (1) state capacity, (2) political institutions, (3) political priorities, and (4) social structures to identify national-level political and social characteristics that may help explain variation in the ability of societies to limit Covid-19 mortality. Accounting for a simple set of Lasso-chosen controls, we find that measures of interpersonal and institutional trust are persistently associated with reported Covid-19 deaths in theory-consistent directions. Beyond this, however, patterns are poorly predicted by existing theories, and by arguments in the popular press focused on populist governments, women-led governments, and pandemic preparedness. Expert predictions of mortality patterns associated with state capacity, democracy, and inequality, do no better than chance. Overall, our analysis highlights the challenges our discipline’s theories face in accounting for political responses to unanticipated, society-wide crises.
@unpublished{correlates_202, author = {Bosancianu, Constantin Manuel and Dionne, Kim Yi and Hilbig, Hanno and Humphreys, Macartan and Sampada, KC and Lieber, Nils and Scacco, Alexandra Lawrence}, title = {Political and social correlates of covid-19 mortality}, year = {2020}, publisher = {SocArXiv}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/ub3zd}, url = {https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ub3zd/}, status = {peer}, proj = {covid}, keywords = {health, development}, proj.1 = {covid} }