Getting in touch

I value face-to-face conversations with readers, students, social scientists, journalists, and other people.

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If you are passing through the area and we have similar research interests, or if we follow each other on Twitter, or if you would like to chat about politics or economics, feel free to reach out.

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Inbox: zilinsky -at- nyu.edu

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Even if we met a long time ago at a conference, I am happy to re-connect.

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A mini-disclaimer: Please don't take it personally if you didn't receive a timely answer. Like you, I sometimes have to put out fires. Or my inbox was jumbled when my nephew played with my phone (I wouldn't dream of doing that myself). So would you please resend your message?

The assignment

My job is to develop research that will improve our understanding of citizens' information environments.

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How can we do that? I start by documenting and quantifying:

• echo chambers

• populist speech

• beliefs in conspiracy theories

• other objects manufactured by political entrepreneurs

In the press

My research has been mentioned in The Economist, the Atlantic, the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Quartz, LSE EUROPP, and cited by the International Monetary Fund and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Selected research topics

• Do voters remember issue-based promises from campaigns?

• How many Americans are in "media bubbles" online?

• How often do celebrities engage in political mobilization? (Washington Post summary; published paper)

• Did foreign interference in the 2016 election change vote intentions?

Motivation

Any room where people carry cell phones inevitably contains political text and information. If people's pockets and screens are filled with news and ideological arguments, even on platforms designed for filtering photographs, will the quality of democracy deteriorate? 

Earlier work

• Projects related to discrimination, behavioral economics, and inclusive capitalism, including this article with Justin Wolfers.
   

• Background research for a handbook chapter by Esther Duflo and Marianne Bertrand. The review quantified the costs of being stereotyped or discriminated against based on existing academic literature, and described sociocognitive, technological, and other interventions aimed at weakening discrimination.
   

• A two-year contract at MIT. Assistance with the Principles of Economics textbook (Daron Acemoglu, David Laibson, and John List).