MATIAS IARYCZOWER
Assistant Professor of Economics and Political Science
California Institute of Technology
Division of Humanitites and Social Sciences
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91125, MC 228-77
Office: 312 Baxter Hall
Phone: (626) 395-4061
E-mail: miaryc@hss.caltech.edu
Research
Classes
Political Economy Workshop
CV

Research Interests 

My research is in the field of Positive Political Theory / Political Economy. I am particularly interested in exploring how different institutional designs affect collective decision-making in committees, both small (legislatures, courts) and large (electorates). My work uses Game Theory and Quantitative Methods.

Papers 

  • "Elected Representatives or Appointed Bureaucrats? Disentangling the Bias and Quality of Information of the Politician and the Judge", with Garrett Lewis and Matt Shum. [COMING SOON]
We estimate the ideology and quality of information of justices of state supreme courts, using an equilibrium model with common values and incomplete information. We allow both biases and the quality of information to be influenced by the methods used to appoint and retain members to the high court. The results allow us to compare the unobservable traits of elected and appointed justices, and to perform constitutional experiments evaluating abstract institutional systems.
We introduce a model of elections in non-majoritarian systems that aims to capture the link between competition in policies and competition in campaign spending. We show that under some conditions spending caps and compulsory voting can be pro-competitive, leading to an increase in the number of parties contesting the elections.
We estimate an equilibrium model of decision-making in the US Supreme Court which takes into account both private information and ideological differences between justices. We present a measure of the value of information in the court, and perform counterfactual simulations to draw implications for institutional design.
We estimate a model of voting in Congress that allows for dispersed information about the quality of proposals in an equilibrium context. The results highlight the effects of bicameralism on policy outcomes. In equilibrium, the Senate imposes an endogenous supermajority rule of about four-fifths on members of the House. 
We argue that the number of candidates running for public office, their ideological differentiation, and the intensity of campaign competition are jointly determined in response to the incentives provided by the electoral system. We provide a comparison between majoritarian and proportional electoral systems.
  • "Many Enemies, Much Honor? On the  Competitiveness of Elections in Proportional Representation Systems", with Andrea Mattozzi. In Aragones, E., Bevia, C., Llavador, H., Schofield, N., Eds., The Political Economy of Democracy, fundacion BBVA, 2008.
We consider strategic voting in sequential committees in a common value setting with incomplete information. We show that the tally of votes in the  originating committee can aggregate and transmit relevant information for members of the second committee in equilibrium, and provide conditions for the composition and size of committees under which this occurs.
We argue that party discipline is endogenously determined by backbenchers' beliefs about the extent of support to the leader within the party. We show that rewards/punishments that can be distributed publicly and on the spot are necessary for the leader to be powerful: without them, the leader can sway members' behavior with promises of future benefits only if a majority of the party supports the leader's preferred position in the first place.
We provide conditions for judicial decisions to be sensitive to legislative lobbying, and find that lobbying falls the more divided the legislature is on the relevant issues. We apply this framework to analyze supreme court labor decisions in Argentina.
  • "The Supreme Court," with Pablo T. Spiller and Mariano Tommasi, in Pablo Spiller and Mariano Tommasi (eds.), The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy in Argentina: A Transaction Cost Approach, 2007, Cambridge University Press.
In this chapter, we place Argentina's Supreme Court in the broader political context. We analyze the incentives and constraints faced by Supreme Court justices, and the ability of the court to provide checks to the elected branches of government. (This chapter draws heavily from our paper "Judicial Independence in Unstable Environments".)
We examine the independence of Argentina's Supreme Court. Our results show an often defiant Court subject to constraints. We find that judicial decision-making was strategic.  The probability of voting against the government increases the less aligned the justice is with the President, but falls the stronger the control of the president over the legislature.

Work in Progress
  • "Voting with Common Values in Legislatures", with M.Shum and G.Freitas.
  • "Floor-Power, Gate-Keeping, and the Spatial Voting Model in Congress", with Gabriel Katz and Sebastian Saiegh.
  • "The Institutional Determinants of Information Transmission in the U.S. Congress", with Gabriel Katz and Sebastian Saiegh.
  • "Politics in the Firm: Delegation and Contracts with Disagreement in Strategic Plans", with Jean-Laurent Rosenthal.
  • "A Ranking of Unicameral and Bicameral Systems under Strategic Voting".
  • "Choosing Records", with Andrea Mattozzi.

Other Working Papers and Publications (In Spanish)

  • "Coming Together. The Industrial Organization of Federalism". With Mariano Tommasi and Sebastian Saiegh. CEDI Working Paper No.30, 1999. (donwload)
  • The Institutional Sources of Development in Argentina. Towards an Institutional Agenda. 2000. Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires  UNDP-CEDI. Project Directors: Mariano Tommasi and Pablo Spiller.
  • "Federal Fiscal Institutions. A Reform Proposal", with Juan Sanguinetti and Mariano Tommasi. CEDI Working Paper No. 43, 2000. (download)
  • "Institutions, Contracts, and Infrastructure Regulation in Argentina", with Manuel Abdala. CEDI Working Paper No. 15, 1998. (download)
  • "Some Considerations about the Optimal Design of Federal Fiscal Institutions", with Mariano Tommasi and Sebastian Saiegh. Economica, XLIV, no.3, 1998. (download)
  • "An Economic Analysis of Housing Policies in Argentina", with Marcela Cristini. Asociacion Argentina de Economia Politica, XXXII Annual Meeting, vol. II, 1997.

Classes (Caltech)

  • Industrial Organization, EC105
  • Analyzing Legislatures, PS121
  • Foundations of Political Economy, SS210

Political Economy Workshop @ Caltech

  • See upcoming talks here
  • Previous quarters

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"Insect Factory", by Fede


"Colorful Ryan, The Giraffe", by Fede
And well..., that's ... me, by Fede.





"Pumpkin", by Fede




"Untitled", by Fede





"Meet MRC (the robot)", by Fede