Vincent Hopkins
Biographic Data
| ID | 4373756 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vincent Hopkins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vincent |
| FAMILY NAME | Hopkins |
| SIGNATURE | HOPKINS V |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7326-1808 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1945 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Using behavioral science to improve compliance in government records management: Evidence from a large field experiment
Governments depend on organized records for institutional memory. Yet many civil servants fail to comply with records retention policies. We argue that non-compliance is often unintentional, owing to the difficulty and low priority of target behaviors. We present results from a large, pre-registered field experiment with civil servants in Canada ( N = 22,774). Combining a pre-commitment device with timely, salient information, we evaluate a behav…
How Do Immigration Policies Affect Voter Support for Low-Skilled Immigrants? Evidence from a Survey Experiment
Countries depend on both high- and low-skilled immigration to meet economic needs. But most voters prefer high-skilled immigrants, despite the fact that multiple economic sectors structurally depend on low-skilled immigrants. In this paper, we examine voter preferences toward low-skilled immigrants as one barrier to effective immigration policy, even in political regimes where immigration is the consequence of highly coordinated or “planned” poli…
Behaviorally informed interventions can increase take-up of public employment services, but conversion remains challenging: Insights from an RCT in British Columbia, Canada
Low take-up of government services continues to challenge public investments in social services. Behaviorally informed interventions, so-called nudges, can overcome barriers that keep eligible individuals from accessing services. We report results from a pre-registered randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test email-based interventions to increase the take-up of publicly funded employment services in British Columbia, Canada. Our RCT design disti…
Behavioural insights policies in Canada: Support for nudges vs nudging
Over the past twenty years, behavioural insights and nudges have gained prominence in public policy design. Public opinion research on this subject has largely considered two questions: (1) who supports nudges? and (2) where is support for nudges strongest? Using data from two nationally representative surveys fielded in 2023 and 2024 (N = 2020 and N = 1991), we take up these questions in Canada—a ‘principled pro-nudge’ country. We measure opinio…
Nudging increases take‐up of employment services: Evidence from a large field experiment
When people lose their job, labor market programs help them get back to work. But administrative burdens can hinder enrollment in such programs. We report results from a mixed‐method project to increase enrollment in employment services during the first 3 months of the COVID‐19 pandemic. First, we interviewed jobseekers and frontline staff to uncover administrative burdens. Second we worked with staff to co‐design a behavioral “nudge” interventio…
How Do We Know What We Know? Learning from Monte Carlo Simulations
Monte Carlo simulations are commonly used to test the performance of estimators and models from rival methods, under a range of data-generating processes. This tool improves our understanding of the relative merits of rival methods in different contexts, such as varying sample sizes and violations of assumptions. When used, it is common to report the bias or the root mean squared error of the different methods. It is far less common to report the…
Does Administrative Burden Influence Support for a Low-Income Child Care Supplement? Evidence from a Survey Experiment
The Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Plan promises to help low-income parents, especially women, participate in the economy. But even under this plan, care will be too expensive for many families. Several provinces offer targeted subsidies to reduce fees—unfortunately, these benefits are often hard to access and their popularity with voters is unclear. Using a pre-registered survey experiment (N=821), this research note investigates supp…
Ambiguous Covid-19 Messaging Increases Unsafe Socializing Intentions
Before and during the vaccine roll out, governments reported surging COVID-19 cases due to unsafe socializing among younger individuals. Officials continue to search for effective ways to encourage safe socializing behaviour within this demographic. However, a key challenge is that public health advice is necessarily nuanced and complex, which can create ambiguity. Appropriate behaviour depends on specific circumstances and public messaging canno…
Behavioural Insights and Public Policy in Canada
Much of political science rests on assumptions about how policy makers and citizens behave. However, questions remain about how public policy can improve the government–citizen relationship. In this research note, we present behavioural insights (BI) as one way to address this gap. First, we argue that BI can be strategically used both to alleviate administrative burdens and to enhance citizen experience. Second, we argue that BI interventions ca…
Transformed-likelihood estimators for dynamic panel models with a very small T
Conventional OLS fixed-effects and GLS random-effects estimators of dynamic models that control for individual-effects are known to be biased when applied to short panel data (T ≤ 10). GMM estimators are the most used alternative but are known to have drawbacks. Transformed-likelihood estimators are unused in political science. Of these, orthogonal reparameterization estimators are only tangentially referred to in any discipline. We introduce the…
It's coming from inside the House (of Commons): Agenda control, accountability, and interest group lobbying in majoritarian parliaments
In majoritarian parliaments, the executive branch typically enjoys an informational advantage over the legislature. In theory, legislators can reduce this asymmetry with information from interest groups. In practice, the government is almost always better informed than the legislature. This article develops a model whereby a politician's access to outside information depends not just on her parliamentary power but on the diffusion of legislative …
The Influence of Cause and Sectional Group Lobbying on Government Responsiveness
Voters are increasingly concerned that special interests control the policy process. Yet, the literature on representation is more optimistic: elected officials face strong incentives to listen to voters—not just lobby groups—and this makes for more responsive policies. Building on recent work, we argue a more nuanced point: different types of groups have different effects on responsiveness. We show empirically that lobbying from “cause” groups—r…
Institutions, Incentives, and Policy Entrepreneurship
Policy entrepreneurship is often used to explain agenda setting through reference to the behavior of individual “change agents.” But there are still gaps in our understanding of what motivates entrepreneurs. Rational choice theory emphasizes the importance of material and nonmaterial incentives; however, it remains unclear what role institutions play. This article aims to empirically examine the relationship between incentives and institutional e…
A Protestant Image of Catholicism
The Supremacy of Law: Idea and Ideal
Darwinism and America
Essays in the Public Philosophy
The Conservative Concern
Nationalism Re-examined
Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality
The American in European Eyes
Historians and Their Craft: A Study of the Presidential Addresses of the American Historical Association, 1884-1945
Socialism and American Life
Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals
Dred Scott's Case
The Influence of Cause and Sectional Group Lobbying on Government Responsiveness
Voters are increasingly concerned that special interests control the policy process. Yet, the literature on representation is more optimistic: elected officials face strong incentives to listen to voters—not just lobby groups—and this makes for more responsive policies. Building on recent work, we argue a more nuanced point: different types of groups have different effects on responsiveness. We show empirically that lobbying from “cause” groups—r…
Institutions, Incentives, and Policy Entrepreneurship
Policy entrepreneurship is often used to explain agenda setting through reference to the behavior of individual “change agents.” But there are still gaps in our understanding of what motivates entrepreneurs. Rational choice theory emphasizes the importance of material and nonmaterial incentives; however, it remains unclear what role institutions play. This article aims to empirically examine the relationship between incentives and institutional e…
Nudging increases take‐up of employment services: Evidence from a large field experiment
When people lose their job, labor market programs help them get back to work. But administrative burdens can hinder enrollment in such programs. We report results from a mixed‐method project to increase enrollment in employment services during the first 3 months of the COVID‐19 pandemic. First, we interviewed jobseekers and frontline staff to uncover administrative burdens. Second we worked with staff to co‐design a behavioral “nudge” interventio…
How Do We Know What We Know? Learning from Monte Carlo Simulations
Monte Carlo simulations are commonly used to test the performance of estimators and models from rival methods, under a range of data-generating processes. This tool improves our understanding of the relative merits of rival methods in different contexts, such as varying sample sizes and violations of assumptions. When used, it is common to report the bias or the root mean squared error of the different methods. It is far less common to report the…
Behavioural Insights and Public Policy in Canada
Much of political science rests on assumptions about how policy makers and citizens behave. However, questions remain about how public policy can improve the government–citizen relationship. In this research note, we present behavioural insights (BI) as one way to address this gap. First, we argue that BI can be strategically used both to alleviate administrative burdens and to enhance citizen experience. Second, we argue that BI interventions ca…
Transformed-likelihood estimators for dynamic panel models with a very small T
Conventional OLS fixed-effects and GLS random-effects estimators of dynamic models that control for individual-effects are known to be biased when applied to short panel data (T ≤ 10). GMM estimators are the most used alternative but are known to have drawbacks. Transformed-likelihood estimators are unused in political science. Of these, orthogonal reparameterization estimators are only tangentially referred to in any discipline. We introduce the…
It's coming from inside the House (of Commons): Agenda control, accountability, and interest group lobbying in majoritarian parliaments
In majoritarian parliaments, the executive branch typically enjoys an informational advantage over the legislature. In theory, legislators can reduce this asymmetry with information from interest groups. In practice, the government is almost always better informed than the legislature. This article develops a model whereby a politician's access to outside information depends not just on her parliamentary power but on the diffusion of legislative …
Does Administrative Burden Influence Support for a Low-Income Child Care Supplement? Evidence from a Survey Experiment
The Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Plan promises to help low-income parents, especially women, participate in the economy. But even under this plan, care will be too expensive for many families. Several provinces offer targeted subsidies to reduce fees—unfortunately, these benefits are often hard to access and their popularity with voters is unclear. Using a pre-registered survey experiment (N=821), this research note investigates supp…
Criticism in American Periodicals of the Works of Henry James from 1866 to 1916
Major Trends in American Church History
The American Scene
Critics and Crusaders: A Century of American Protest
Zachary Taylor
The Selected Writings of Benjamin Rush
Thomas Jefferson, American Humanist
Dred Scott's Case
Dred Scott's Case
The Irony of American History
Historians and Their Craft: A Study of the Presidential Addresses of the American Historical Association, 1884-1945
Socialism and American Life
Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals
Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality
The American in European Eyes
Nationalism Re-examined
Essays in the Public Philosophy
The Conservative Concern
The Supremacy of Law: Idea and Ideal
Darwinism and America
A Protestant Image of Catholicism
Institutions, Incentives, and Policy Entrepreneurship
Policy entrepreneurship is often used to explain agenda setting through reference to the behavior of individual “change agents.” But there are still gaps in our understanding of what motivates entrepreneurs. Rational choice theory emphasizes the importance of material and nonmaterial incentives; however, it remains unclear what role institutions play. This article aims to empirically examine the relationship between incentives and institutional e…
It's coming from inside the House (of Commons): Agenda control, accountability, and interest group lobbying in majoritarian parliaments
In majoritarian parliaments, the executive branch typically enjoys an informational advantage over the legislature. In theory, legislators can reduce this asymmetry with information from interest groups. In practice, the government is almost always better informed than the legislature. This article develops a model whereby a politician's access to outside information depends not just on her parliamentary power but on the diffusion of legislative …
The Influence of Cause and Sectional Group Lobbying on Government Responsiveness
Voters are increasingly concerned that special interests control the policy process. Yet, the literature on representation is more optimistic: elected officials face strong incentives to listen to voters—not just lobby groups—and this makes for more responsive policies. Building on recent work, we argue a more nuanced point: different types of groups have different effects on responsiveness. We show empirically that lobbying from “cause” groups—r…
Transformed-likelihood estimators for dynamic panel models with a very small T
Conventional OLS fixed-effects and GLS random-effects estimators of dynamic models that control for individual-effects are known to be biased when applied to short panel data (T ≤ 10). GMM estimators are the most used alternative but are known to have drawbacks. Transformed-likelihood estimators are unused in political science. Of these, orthogonal reparameterization estimators are only tangentially referred to in any discipline. We introduce the…
Political science (16 works) · History (10 works) · Politics (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Art (6 works) · Government (linguistics (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (5 works)