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Fe­lix Hart­mann

Postdoc

Subjects
Statistics Democracy Quantitative methods Disaster Crisis Infrastructure

Primary research areas

Polit­ic­al Eco­nomy of Pub­lic Goods Pro­vi­sion
My core re­search agenda ex­am­ines why pub­lic goods such as health­care, edu­ca­tion, and in­fra­struc­ture are un­der-provided and how can it be im­proved, fo­cus­ing on the in­ter­ac­tions between voters, politi­cians, and firms. A sig­ni­fic­ant part of my work in­vest­ig­ates when voters re­ward pub­lic ser­vice pro­vi­sion and how these dy­nam­ics shape gov­ernance out­comes. I am par­tic­u­larly in­ter­ested in how con­nec­tions between politi­cians and firms in­flu­ence the al­loc­a­tion and qual­ity of pub­lic ser­vices.
Money in Polit­ics
I in­vest­ig­ate ques­tions such as how firms in­flu­ence polit­ics through lob­by­ing, who be­comes a lob­by­ist, how firms in­flu­ence le­gis­la­tion, or wheth­er they can be­ne­fit from polit­ic­al con­nec­tions.
Gov­ernance In­sti­tu­tions
More broadly, my re­search aims to un­der­stand how to design gov­ernance in­sti­tu­tions to en­hance pub­lic wel­fare. I act­ively ex­plore top­ics such as im­prov­ing demo­crat­ic in­sti­tu­tions, build­ing trust in gov­ern­ment dur­ing crises, and the se­lec­tion of can­did­ates for polit­ic­al of­fice.

How do the in­ter­ac­tions of voters, politi­cians, and firms shape polit­ics?

My research intersects political economy, political behavior, and money in politics. I study why core public services are under-provided and how incentives across voters, politicians, and firms drive outcomes. I use surveys, large-scale administrative and procurement data, and experiments to examine accountability, campaign finance, and business influence. Methodologically, I specialize in causal inference for observational and experimental data, complemented by machine learning and text-as-data.