Photo Credit: Pexels, cc A 2018 study estimates that every year, over 3 million articles are published in peer-reviewed, English-language... View Article
Continue readingA new approach to measuring the impact of open data
Strong evidence on the long-term impact of open data is scarce, so we're developing a body of research to better evaluate the impact of digital transparency initiatives.
Continue readingSharing sensitive data within government
When interagency data-sharing relationships are established, governments can produce highly useful analyses while upholding commitments to privacy.
Continue readingWhy do we trust researchers with sensitive data?
Developing a sense of trustworthiness improves the likelihood that researchers and data-holding partners will be able to develop good ways to work together.
Continue readingWhy you should be skeptical of candidates’ self-imposed bans on special interest contributions
For anyone paying attention to the hypocrisy surrounding the so-called “people’s pledge” in the Massachusetts Senate race, a new paper offers some good evidence of why you should be skeptical of these kinds of pledges in general. The paper, “Campaign Contributions from Corporate Executives in Lieu of Political Action Committees” is by Brian Keller Richter and Timothy Werner, both assistant professors of Business, Government, and Society at the University of Texas at Austin, finds that when candidates pledge to stop accepting money from political action committees (PACs), corporate CEOs step up their personal contributions.
Continue readingCampaign contributions help companies get more federal contracts, study finds
In 2011, the U.S. federal government awarded $537 billion in private contracts. If U.S. federal contracts were their own national... View Article
Continue readingHow local spending helps incumbent presidents (and why it will be harder to know this in the future)
Psst, Mr. President, want to get re-elected? Here’s an idea: how about big increases in federal spending in key swing... View Article
Continue readingDo lobbying and campaign contributions help corporate fraudsters?
Though those of us who study money in politics tend to focus on its effects on legislation and regulation, two... View Article
Continue readingCompanies who lobby outperform companies who don’t lobby
The more a company lobbies, the better its publicly-traded shares perform. At least, that’s the conclusion of an academic research... View Article
Continue readingOn Cognitive Democracy and New Technology
In many ways, the work that we do here at the Sunlight Foundation is built on the premise that democracy... View Article
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