My Research


How can we promote civic virtue? What do citizens owe their government, and what does their government owe them in return? These questions have occupied philosophers from Aristotle to Locke. In my research, I examine how ordinary Americans wrestle with these ancient questions in modern politics.

I use tools from survey research and behavioral economics to examine how people's political behavior and policy preferences are shaped by their cognitive biases, their moral convictions, their partisan identities, and their judgments of merit and desert. I also conduct policy analyses using quasi-experimental methods to study who actually receives the goods and protections of society, who is left out, and why. Together, these two tracks examine both the sources of policy support and the distribution of policy benefits.

—Current Projects—

  • The Burden of Taxes. Using methods from experimental economics (see Software), we conduct a powerful test of the burden hypothesis of redistribution preferences (for more, see Carter, B. et al, 2026). We find that people with low income do not support redistribution when taxes present upfront costs; removing these costs leads to robust support for redistribution as rationality predicts.
  • Moral Conviction. People become more politically active and ideologically polarized when they are morally convicted about an issue. For example, when one person or group does harm to another, people often consider this a matter of "right" and "wrong". Using a series of survey experiments, I am investigating whether becoming morally convicted depends on who was harmed (e.g., someone from my political party) and on who is blamed.
  • Work Requirements. Saftey-net programs like SNAP and Medicaid promote self-reliance by requiring that beneficiaries work each month. As an ARTEMIS Fellow at J-PAL North America, I'm designing a pilot study investigating why some people who meet the work requirements still lose their benefits.

—Manuscripts Under Review—

  • Experimental Tests of the Merit Theory of Redistribution
    Carter, B. and DeScioli, P.
    Under Review at American Political Science Review
  • What Mobilizes the Mobilizers? How Text and Email Messages Shape GOTV Efforts
    Carter, B., Caton, C., Kernell, G., Martin, A., McCabe, K., McCann, J., and Singh, R.
    Under Review at Political Behavior
  • From Bipartisan to Partisan: How Elite Cues Override Aesthetic Intuition in Federal Architecture Preferences
    Del Ponte, A., Carter, B.
    Under Review at Public Opinion Quarterly
  • Taxation Without Access: Deservingness Misperceptions and Support for Immigrant Health Insurance
    Sawyer, M., Carter, B.
    Under Review at Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law


—Peer-Reviewed Publications—