Research

Publications

1. The Politics of Small Business Owners

   Neil Malhotra, Yotam Margalit, and Saikun Shi

   British Journal of Political Science, 2025

   ABSTRACT HTML

   Small business owners play a central role in all advanced economies. Nonetheless, they are an understudied occupational group politically, particularly compared to groups that represent smaller portions of the population such as union members and manufacturing workers. In this study, we conduct a detailed investigation of the politics of small business owners and offer new insight into the evolving role of education, class, and occupation in electoral politics. Leveraging diverse sources of data is not - representative surveys from around the world, campaign finance records, voter files, and a first-of-its kind, bespoke survey of small business owners - we find consistent evidence that small business owners are more likely to identify with and vote for right-wing parties. We find that this tendency cannot be fully explained by factors that cause people to select into being small business owners. Rather, we identify a key operational channel: the experience of being a small business owner leads people to adopt conservative views on government regulation.

Working Papers

1. Frontiers of the Franchise: How Partisan Electoral Concerns Shape Public Support for Expanding Voting Rights

   Saikun Shi

   Draft available upon request

   ABSTRACT

   How do perceived partisan and social ramifications of voting rights extensions affect public support for expanding the franchise? Through two original survey experi- ments, I find that partisan electoral concerns consistently and significantly influence Americans’ support for expanding the right to vote to citizens with previous felony convictions, non-citizens, and younger Americans. When respondents expect enfranchisement to benefit the opposite party, they are much less likely to support voting rights extensions. However, there is a striking asymmetry in such responses: support is virtually unchanged when enfranchisement is projected to benefit their own party versus when it is projected to be electorally neutral. Meanwhile, respondents from both political parties hold almost identical priors that the Democratic Party would very slightly benefit more from voting rights extensions. Together, the empirical pat- terns suggest that the mass public is mainly motivated by electoral threat when de- ciding whether to expand the franchise. My results provide valuable insights into the prospects for further voting rights expansions in the US, and imply that perceived electoral non-neutrality is a major obstacle to increasing democratic inclusion in this country.

Works in Progress

1. The Political Economy of Merger & Acquisition Regulatory Reviews in the US

   Saikun Shi

   Slides available upon request
2. Targeted Advertising and Candidate Entry

   Greg Martin, and Saikun Shi

   Slides available upon request