David Rothschild
Biographic Data
| ID | 335824 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Rothschild |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Rothschild |
| SIGNATURE | ROTHSCHILD D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Microsoft (United States) |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7792-1989 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 113 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Effects of LLM use and note-taking on reading comprehension and memory
Students' rapid uptake of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools, particularly large language models (LLMs), raises urgent questions about their effects on learning. We compared the impact of LLM use to that of traditional note-taking, or a combination of both, on secondary school students' reading comprehension and retention. We conducted a pre-registered, randomised controlled experiment with within- and between-participant design elements in…
Search conversion journeys and the missed opportunity of associated keywords
We map the conversion journey (i.e., the path a costumer takes to purchase a product or service) for phones, laptops, and vehicles (i.e., cars and trucks) by analyzing a massive corpus of online searches on Bing by people in the U.S. during 2021. We show that, contrary to the idealized version of the model, the observed path of customers is often circuitous and haphazard. Nevertheless, major advertisers heavily concentrate their advertising late …
Gun purchase interest as backlash to Black Lives Matter protests
How do protests affect Americans' gun ownership decisions? Using a novel dataset of gun-related web searches in combination with geocoded protest data, we examine the effects of the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests on Americans' interest in firearm purchase. We find a clear relationship between geographic proximity to BLM protests and firearm purchase web searches, but a null relationship between these searches and proximity to re-opening p…
Do Partisans Make Different Investment Decisions When Their Party is in Power
Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and ICE Reporting Interest
This paper studies whether media cues can motivate interest in reporting suspected unauthorized immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Using web search data and automated content analysis of cable news transcripts, we examine the role of media coverage on searches for how to report immigrants to ICE and searches about immigrant crime and welfare dependency. We find significant and persistent increases in news segments on crime b…
Blocks as Geographic Discontinuities
A potential voter must incur a number of costs in order to successfully cast an in-person ballot, including the costs associated with identifying and traveling to a polling place. In order to investigate how these costs affect voter turnout, we introduce two quasi-experimental designs that can be used to study how the political participation of registered voters is affected by differences in the relative distance that registrants must travel to t…
The cost of anti-Asian racism during the Covid-19 pandemic
Comparing Estimates of News Consumption from Survey and Passively Collected Behavioral Data
Surveys are a vital tool for understanding public opinion and knowledge, but they can also yield biased estimates of behavior. Here we explore a popular and important behavior that is frequently measured in public opinion surveys: news consumption. Previous studies have shown that television news consumption is consistently overreported in surveys relative to passively collected behavioral data. We validate these earlier findings, showing that th…
One Person, One Vote
Beliefs about the incidence of voter fraud inform how people view the trade-off between electoral integrity and voter accessibility. To better inform such beliefs about the rate of double voting, we develop and apply a method to estimate how many people voted twice in the 2012 presidential election. We estimate that about one in 4,000 voters cast two ballots, although an audit suggests that the true rate may be lower due to small errors in electr…
President Trump Stress Disorder
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, many Democrats reported significant increases in stress, depression, and anxiety. Were these increases real, or the product of expressive reporting? Using a unique data set of searches by more than 1 million Bing users before and after the election, we examine the changes in mental-health-related searches among Democrats and Republicans. We then compare these changes to shifts in searches among Spanish-speak…
Using Big Data and Algorithms to Determine the Effect of Geographically Targeted Advertising on Vote Intention
We develop a new conceptualization of political advertising effects by looking at the effect of the marginal advertising dollar during the heat of presidential campaigns. We argue that in contrast to other studies investigating effects of political ads, our approach is more apt to capture the natural environment in which political ads are encountered during a presidential campaign. We focus on the intense inundation of political ads voters are co…
The Mythical Swing Voter
Most surveys conducted during the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign showed large swings in support for the Democratic and Republican candidates, especially before and after the first presidential debate. Using a combination of traditional cross-sectional surveys, a unique panel survey (in terms of scale, frequency, and source), and a high response rate panel, we find that daily sample composition varied more in response to campaign events than did …
Forecasting elections with non-representative polls
Are public opinion polls self-fulfilling prophecies
Psychologists have long observed that people conform to majority opinion, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the ‘bandwagon effect’. In the political domain people learn about prevailing public opinion via ubiquitous polls, which may produce a bandwagon effect. Newer types of information – published probabilities derived from prediction market contract prices and aggregated polling summaries – may have similar effects. Consequently, polls can …
Fundamental models for forecasting elections at the state level
Forecasting Elections
Using the 2008 elections, I explore the accuracy and informational content of forecasts derived from two different types of data: polls and prediction markets. Both types of data suffer from inherent biases, and this is the first analysis to compare the accuracy of these forecasts adjusting for these biases. Moreover, the analysis expands on previous research by evaluating state-level forecasts in Presidential and Senatorial races, rather than ju…
The Mythical Swing Voter
Most surveys conducted during the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign showed large swings in support for the Democratic and Republican candidates, especially before and after the first presidential debate. Using a combination of traditional cross-sectional surveys, a unique panel survey (in terms of scale, frequency, and source), and a high response rate panel, we find that daily sample composition varied more in response to campaign events than did …
Comparing Estimates of News Consumption from Survey and Passively Collected Behavioral Data
Surveys are a vital tool for understanding public opinion and knowledge, but they can also yield biased estimates of behavior. Here we explore a popular and important behavior that is frequently measured in public opinion surveys: news consumption. Previous studies have shown that television news consumption is consistently overreported in surveys relative to passively collected behavioral data. We validate these earlier findings, showing that th…
Are public opinion polls self-fulfilling prophecies
Psychologists have long observed that people conform to majority opinion, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the ‘bandwagon effect’. In the political domain people learn about prevailing public opinion via ubiquitous polls, which may produce a bandwagon effect. Newer types of information – published probabilities derived from prediction market contract prices and aggregated polling summaries – may have similar effects. Consequently, polls can …
Forecasting Elections
Using the 2008 elections, I explore the accuracy and informational content of forecasts derived from two different types of data: polls and prediction markets. Both types of data suffer from inherent biases, and this is the first analysis to compare the accuracy of these forecasts adjusting for these biases. Moreover, the analysis expands on previous research by evaluating state-level forecasts in Presidential and Senatorial races, rather than ju…
Fundamental models for forecasting elections at the state level
One Person, One Vote
Beliefs about the incidence of voter fraud inform how people view the trade-off between electoral integrity and voter accessibility. To better inform such beliefs about the rate of double voting, we develop and apply a method to estimate how many people voted twice in the 2012 presidential election. We estimate that about one in 4,000 voters cast two ballots, although an audit suggests that the true rate may be lower due to small errors in electr…
The cost of anti-Asian racism during the Covid-19 pandemic
Using Big Data and Algorithms to Determine the Effect of Geographically Targeted Advertising on Vote Intention
We develop a new conceptualization of political advertising effects by looking at the effect of the marginal advertising dollar during the heat of presidential campaigns. We argue that in contrast to other studies investigating effects of political ads, our approach is more apt to capture the natural environment in which political ads are encountered during a presidential campaign. We focus on the intense inundation of political ads voters are co…
Do Partisans Make Different Investment Decisions When Their Party is in Power
President Trump Stress Disorder
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, many Democrats reported significant increases in stress, depression, and anxiety. Were these increases real, or the product of expressive reporting? Using a unique data set of searches by more than 1 million Bing users before and after the election, we examine the changes in mental-health-related searches among Democrats and Republicans. We then compare these changes to shifts in searches among Spanish-speak…
Blocks as Geographic Discontinuities
A potential voter must incur a number of costs in order to successfully cast an in-person ballot, including the costs associated with identifying and traveling to a polling place. In order to investigate how these costs affect voter turnout, we introduce two quasi-experimental designs that can be used to study how the political participation of registered voters is affected by differences in the relative distance that registrants must travel to t…
Forecasting Elections
Using the 2008 elections, I explore the accuracy and informational content of forecasts derived from two different types of data: polls and prediction markets. Both types of data suffer from inherent biases, and this is the first analysis to compare the accuracy of these forecasts adjusting for these biases. Moreover, the analysis expands on previous research by evaluating state-level forecasts in Presidential and Senatorial races, rather than ju…
Are public opinion polls self-fulfilling prophecies
Psychologists have long observed that people conform to majority opinion, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the ‘bandwagon effect’. In the political domain people learn about prevailing public opinion via ubiquitous polls, which may produce a bandwagon effect. Newer types of information – published probabilities derived from prediction market contract prices and aggregated polling summaries – may have similar effects. Consequently, polls can …
Fundamental models for forecasting elections at the state level
Forecasting elections with non-representative polls
The Mythical Swing Voter
Most surveys conducted during the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign showed large swings in support for the Democratic and Republican candidates, especially before and after the first presidential debate. Using a combination of traditional cross-sectional surveys, a unique panel survey (in terms of scale, frequency, and source), and a high response rate panel, we find that daily sample composition varied more in response to campaign events than did …
Using Big Data and Algorithms to Determine the Effect of Geographically Targeted Advertising on Vote Intention
We develop a new conceptualization of political advertising effects by looking at the effect of the marginal advertising dollar during the heat of presidential campaigns. We argue that in contrast to other studies investigating effects of political ads, our approach is more apt to capture the natural environment in which political ads are encountered during a presidential campaign. We focus on the intense inundation of political ads voters are co…
President Trump Stress Disorder
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, many Democrats reported significant increases in stress, depression, and anxiety. Were these increases real, or the product of expressive reporting? Using a unique data set of searches by more than 1 million Bing users before and after the election, we examine the changes in mental-health-related searches among Democrats and Republicans. We then compare these changes to shifts in searches among Spanish-speak…
One Person, One Vote
Beliefs about the incidence of voter fraud inform how people view the trade-off between electoral integrity and voter accessibility. To better inform such beliefs about the rate of double voting, we develop and apply a method to estimate how many people voted twice in the 2012 presidential election. We estimate that about one in 4,000 voters cast two ballots, although an audit suggests that the true rate may be lower due to small errors in electr…
Comparing Estimates of News Consumption from Survey and Passively Collected Behavioral Data
Surveys are a vital tool for understanding public opinion and knowledge, but they can also yield biased estimates of behavior. Here we explore a popular and important behavior that is frequently measured in public opinion surveys: news consumption. Previous studies have shown that television news consumption is consistently overreported in surveys relative to passively collected behavioral data. We validate these earlier findings, showing that th…
Blocks as Geographic Discontinuities
A potential voter must incur a number of costs in order to successfully cast an in-person ballot, including the costs associated with identifying and traveling to a polling place. In order to investigate how these costs affect voter turnout, we introduce two quasi-experimental designs that can be used to study how the political participation of registered voters is affected by differences in the relative distance that registrants must travel to t…
The cost of anti-Asian racism during the Covid-19 pandemic
Do Partisans Make Different Investment Decisions When Their Party is in Power
Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and ICE Reporting Interest
This paper studies whether media cues can motivate interest in reporting suspected unauthorized immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Using web search data and automated content analysis of cable news transcripts, we examine the role of media coverage on searches for how to report immigrants to ICE and searches about immigrant crime and welfare dependency. We find significant and persistent increases in news segments on crime b…
Search conversion journeys and the missed opportunity of associated keywords
We map the conversion journey (i.e., the path a costumer takes to purchase a product or service) for phones, laptops, and vehicles (i.e., cars and trucks) by analyzing a massive corpus of online searches on Bing by people in the U.S. during 2021. We show that, contrary to the idealized version of the model, the observed path of customers is often circuitous and haphazard. Nevertheless, major advertisers heavily concentrate their advertising late …
Gun purchase interest as backlash to Black Lives Matter protests
How do protests affect Americans' gun ownership decisions? Using a novel dataset of gun-related web searches in combination with geocoded protest data, we examine the effects of the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests on Americans' interest in firearm purchase. We find a clear relationship between geographic proximity to BLM protests and firearm purchase web searches, but a null relationship between these searches and proximity to re-opening p…
Effects of LLM use and note-taking on reading comprehension and memory
Students' rapid uptake of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools, particularly large language models (LLMs), raises urgent questions about their effects on learning. We compared the impact of LLM use to that of traditional note-taking, or a combination of both, on secondary school students' reading comprehension and retention. We conducted a pre-registered, randomised controlled experiment with within- and between-participant design elements in…
Political science (14 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Media Influence and Politics (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Presidential system (6 works) · Business (5 works)