My Research


What is the proper role of government in a good society? I study how the American public wrestles with this ancient question in modern politics. Americans answer in strikingly different ways depending on their moral convictions, perceived self-interest, partisan loyalties, and their beliefs about the world. Government responds through policy, and those policies determine how society's benefits and burdens are distributed. I use survey experiments, field experiments, behavioral economics, and policy analysis to investigate how citizens think and vote, which policies pass, and ultimately how those policies affect ordinary people's lives.

— Current Projects —

  • The Burden of Taxes. Using methods from experimental economics, we test the burden hypothesis of redistribution preferences from earlier work (Carter et al, 2026). We find that people with low income vote for less redistribution when they must pay taxes to receive benefits. Removing the tax burden while keeping net benefits the same leads to robust support for redistribution among the poor, as rationality predicts.
  • Work Requirements. Safety-net programs like SNAP and Medicaid aim to promote self-reliance by requiring that beneficiaries work each month. As an ARTEMIS Fellow, I am working with J-PAL North America to craft a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to identify why some citizens who meet the work requirements still lose their benefits.
  • Moral Conviction. People become more politically active and resistant to compromise when they feel morally convicted about an issue. For example, people often view harm done to others as a matter of "right" and "wrong". Using a series of survey experiments, I investigate how people's moral conviction and political behavior depends on who has been harmed (e.g., an ally, enemy, criminal, or victim), and who has been blamed.

— Manuscripts Under Review —

  • Experimental Tests of the Merit Theory of Redistribution
    Carter, B. and DeScioli, P.
  • Invited by editor to revise and resubmit 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.
  • From Bipartisan to Partisan: How Elite Cues Override Aesthetic Intuition in Federal Architecture Preferences
    Del Ponte, A., Carter, B.
  • Taxation Without Access: Deservingness Misperceptions and Support for Immigrant Health Insurance
    Sawyer, M., Carter, B.


— Peer-Reviewed Publications —