The workshop will address the question of how the selection process of politicians affects their policy-making behavior: in democratic systems, voters are constantly trying to learn the qualities of their leaders in order to make the best possible electoral choice. This learning process deeply affects the behavior of politicians in ways that can be beneficial but at times also damaging to the quality of government actions. In this respect, an issue of particular interest is the interaction of politicians' and voters' behavior with features of the institutional environment such as the electoral system and the media landscape.

Outline of workshop: the workshop will revolve around the topics of political polarization and populism, with the goal of providing insights on how such topics can be addressed from a political economics standpoint. The angle of analysis will primarily be that of theory, but since the focus will be on research questions, the workshop should also be of interest for empirical researchers. Two of my papers (Polarization and Policy Design and Simplistic Rhetoric and Poe’s Law) will be used as springboards to leverage on my personal experience with the aim of shedding light on the process of research in political economics. However, a broader set of papers (both theoretical and empirical) will be used to discuss the topics and provide examples on how to tackle questions related to polarization and populism.