Freshwater resources are being rapidly depleted by unsustainable human activities in the United States (U.S.), causing concern for water security. If individuals were targeted with appropriate information, public engagement conservation may increase. Political affiliation and ideology play a role grouping based on their conservation, as environmental issues politically contentious U.S. The purp...

Incorporation of prior knowledge into the learning process can significantly improve low-sample classification accuracy. We show how to introduce prior knowledge into linear support vector machines in form of constraints on the rotation of the normal to the separating hyperplane. Such knowledge frequently arises naturally, e.g., as inhibitory and excitatory influences of input variables. We dem...

India addressed the requirement for pro-poor service delivery in rural regions by introducing decentralization and affirmative action policies. In order to measure the social preferences of local decision makers, we conducted field experiments which simulated the selection of needy beneficiaries for welfare schemes. While potential recipients with less land were clearly favoured, decision maker...

Measuring the impact of the media The active participation of the people is one of the central components of a functioning democracy. King et al. performed a real-world randomized experiment in the United States to understand the causal effect of news stories on increasing public discussion of a specific topic (see the Policy Forum by Gentzkow). Social media posts increased by almost 20% the fi...

Dutch municipalities have the right to decide on Sunday shop opening hours since 1996. Despite positive effects on economic growth and employment, many municipalities restrict Sunday trading in one way or another. Based on 2003 data we show that especially religious and political affiliation, regional differences and the size of the municipalities explain the variation between municipalities. T...

Drawing on network theory, this study considers the content of U.S. presidential debates and how candidates’ language differentiates them. Semantic network analyses of all U.S. presidential debates (1960–2004) were conducted. Results reveal that regardless of party affiliation, election winners were more central in their semantic networks than losers. Although the study does not argue causation...

Sunday shop opening is deregulated to the municipal level in the Netherlands. Despite positive effects on economic growth and employment, many municipalities restrict Sunday shop opening. Based on 2003 data we show that diverse local characteristics, like the size of municipalities and religious and political affiliation, play a major role in decisions about Sunday shop opening. The evidence is...

When it comes to environmental quality preferences, it is popularly believed that Democrats (and more generally, liberals) are “green” while Republicans” (conservatives) are “brown”. Does empirical evidence support this popular belief? We test the hypothesis that regional political identification leads to differences in concentration outcomes for several measures of California air pollution ind...