Draft:Elliott Ash

Associate professor of law, economics, and data science at ETH Zurich From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elliott Ash (born 1984) is an associate professor of law, economics, and data science at ETH Zurich.[1][2] His research studies legal and political institutions using econometrics and text analysis. Ash is a co‑editor of the Journal of Law and Economics[3] and associate editor of The Economic Journal.[4] He is a research affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research[5], an academic lead on the Swiss LLM project within the Swiss AI Initiative,[6] and a recipient of a European Research Council Starting Grant.[7][8]

  • Comment: The article either needs to show that the subject has been discussed in depth by independent sources, or that he meets one of the WP:NPROF criteria. Almost all sources at the moment are by him or his employer, or his band. Mgp28 (talk) 17:03, 30 August 2025 (UTC)


Born1984 (age 41–42)
Alma mater
  • University of Texas at Austin (BA)
  • Columbia University (JD, PhD)
  • University of Amsterdam (LLM)
Discipline
  • Law and economics
  • Political economy
  • Empirical legal studies
Institutions
  • ETH Zurich
  • University of Warwick
  • Princeton University
Quick facts Elliott Ash, Born ...
Elliott Ash
Born1984 (age 41–42)
Academic background
Alma mater
  • University of Texas at Austin (BA)
  • Columbia University (JD, PhD)
  • University of Amsterdam (LLM)
Academic work
Discipline
  • Law and economics
  • Political economy
  • Empirical legal studies
Institutions
  • ETH Zurich
  • University of Warwick
  • Princeton University
Websiteelliottash.com
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Early life and education

Ash earned a B.A. in Plan II Honors, economics, government, and philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007, a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2010, an LL.M. in international criminal law from the University of Amsterdam in 2010, and a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in 2016.[9][10] He completed his doctoral studies under the supervision of W. Bentley MacLeod, Suresh Naidu, and Massimo Morelli.[11]

Career

After his doctorate Ash was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University in the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics.[12] He then served as assistant professor of economics at the University of Warwick before joining ETH Zurich in 2018.[13] ETH Zurich promoted him to associate professor in December 2023.[14] In 2024–2025 he was a scholar in residence at New York University School of Law.[15][16]

Research

Ash's research examines law, politics, and media using large datasets and language-based measures.

A central strand of his work develops and applies text analysis methods in economics, as surveyed in his article "Text Algorithms in Economics" in the Annual Review of Economics (2023).[17] Examples highlighting the use of text analysis and machine learning include studies on the growth effects of legislative output,[18] the application of machine learning to anti-corruption policy,[19] the measurement of gender attitudes in the judiciary,[20] analyses of emotion versus reason in political speech,[21] and gendered reactions in parliamentary debates.[22]

His empirical research on courts includes work on the influence of law and economics on judicial decision-making,[23][24] in-group bias in the Indian judiciary,[25] and the effects of mandatory retirement reforms on state supreme courts.[26][27]

His empirical research on media examines how cable news reshaped local government,[28] how Fox News affected health behavior during COVID-19,[29][30] and its broader impact on American democracy.[31]

Combining courts and media, his work with Michael Poyker in the Economic Journal (2024) shows that greater local exposure to Fox News increased criminal sentence severity among elected judges.[32][33][34][35]

Media coverage

Ash’s research has been discussed in a range of independent news and public-interest outlets, particularly in relation to the effects of media and institutional design on political and judicial behavior.

A study co-authored by Ash on the effect of Fox News viewership on health behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic was covered by The Hollywood Reporter, which reported that higher exposure to the channel was associated with reduced adoption of public-health precautions.[36]

His research on the influence of law and economics on judicial decision-making has been discussed on NPR’s Planet Money, in a segment examining the role of economic training and ideas in the federal judiciary.[37]

Work on mandatory retirement reforms for judges has been cited in a discussion on WBUR’s On Point, which examined debates over age limits for elected officials and judges in the United States.[38]

Research co-authored with Michael Poyker on conservative news media and criminal sentencing has been summarized by The Journalist’s Resource, which reported that greater exposure to Fox News was associated with harsher criminal sentences by elected judges.[39] The findings were also discussed in the New Statesman in an article on the influence of Fox News on U.S. judges.[40]

Selected publications

External links

Official website

Elliott Ash publications indexed by Google Scholar

References

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