About

Guy Grossman is the David M. Knott Professor of Global Politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research specializes in applied political economy, focusing on governance, migration and forced displacement, human trafficking, and conflict processes, primarily within developing countries. He is the founder and co-director of Penn’s Development Research Initiative (PDRI-DevLab), established in 2020 to unite faculty and graduate students across the university who are dedicated to identifying solutions to challenges faced by low- and middle-income countries. PDRI-DevLab aims to promote impactful international development research by leveraging the diverse subject-matter and methodological expertise of its members. Grossman's scholarly work has been published in leading academic journals including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Advances, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, and the Journal of Politics. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, earned with distinction in 2011, an MA in Political Philosophy from Tel-Aviv University with summa cum laude honors in 2004, and an LLB in Law from Tel-Aviv University with magna cum laude honors in 1999.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Political economy
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Economics
• Law and economics
• Economic growth
• Criminology
• Development economics
• Public relations
• Medicine
• Public administration
• Virology

Selected publications

• Expression at the edge: Free speech boundaries amidst the Gaza crisis

  Science Advances · 2026-04-15

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Universities have become key arenas in national debates over the boundaries of free expression. Using preregistered online survey experiments with a nationally representative sample of 3065 US college students, this study examines how individuals navigate the tension between free speech and harm prevention, an issue sharpened by recent campus protests over Gaza. We test how variation in the severity of speech and the identity of its target (white, Black, Jewish, Muslim, or transgender individuals) shapes judgments about appropriate institutional responses. Our preregistered analyses show that students generally oppose punishing objectionable speech unless it is perceived as highly harmful and that identical statements directed at minority groups elicit stronger punitive responses than those targeting white individuals. Exploratory analyses reveal that these patterns reflect distinct normative principles: Most students adopt a particularist stance, favoring greater protection for marginalized groups, while a sizable minority adhere to a universalist view emphasizing equal treatment regardless of identity. These principles predict attitudes across contexts, but adherence weakens when individuals hold strong views on the issue at hand. Our findings show that campus conflicts over speech boundaries reflect not only disagreement about norms but also unequal application of these norms across groups and issues.

  PublisherDOI

• Informal connections outweigh coauthorship ties in academic impact

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2026-04-27

  articleOpen access

  Past work has documented the importance of formal collaboration, particularly coauthorship, in increasing research productivity and innovation. However, we know much less about how informal collaboration relates to publication success. Informal ties facilitate the exchange of intangible resources like mentoring, guidance, and feedback. These interactions form a support structure that aims to improve ideas and facilitate the successful development of research projects. However, these informal exchanges are difficult to measure because they do not leave as clear a trail as coauthorship ties. We uncover this layer of informal communication around scholarly outputs by parsing the information contained in the acknowledgment sections of published articles. Our data include [Formula: see text] political science articles authored by [Formula: see text] scholars from 2003 to 2023. We analyze scholars' embeddedness in this informal structure of collaboration and reveal that 1) informal ties create a larger and denser network of support than coauthorship ties; 2) disconnection from informal networks is associated with lower productivity and impact; and 3) informal ties are a more relevant predictor of publication success than formal collaborations (i.e., coauthorship), even after matching for gender, seniority, methodological orientation, geographical location, and institutional prestige. Using coarsened exact matching and random forest regressions, we demonstrate that informal support structures are significantly associated with citation impact, creating gaps in who benefits from these connections.

  PublisherDOI

• The Credibility Revolution in Political Science

  2026-02-26 · 1 citations

  article

  How has the credibility revolution shaped political science? We address this question by classifying 91,632 articles published between 2003 and 2023 across 156 political science journals using large language models, focusing on research design, credibility-enhancing practices, and citation patterns. We find that design-based studies—those leveraging plausibly exogenous variation to justify causal claims—have become increasingly common and receive a citation premium. In contrast, model-based approaches that rely on strong modeling assumptions have declined. Yet the rise of design-based work is uneven: it is concentrated in top journals and among authors at highly ranked institutions, and it is driven primarily by the growth of survey experiments. Other credibility-enhancing practices that help reduce false positives and false negatives, such as placebo tests and power calculations, remain rare. Taken together, our findings point to substantial but selective change—more consistent with a partial reform than a revolution.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Science under Pressure: Competition and Collaboration in a Growing Discipline, 2003–23

  Perspectives on Politics · 2026-04-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Political scientists face a persistent tension between calls for methodological and topical pluralism and the pressures of “publish or perish.” To assess how professional incentives have reshaped the discipline, we analyzed more than 140,000 articles published across 174 political science journals between 2003 and 2023. Our analyses show that publication volume has tripled during that time, driven by new entrants and increasing collaboration. The field has become increasingly quantitative but remains substantively diverse, even though individual papers have become more topically focused. Younger scholars publish more articles but fewer books and book chapters, signaling strategic adaptation to institutional rewards. Although novel research attracts, on average, more citations over time, it does not consistently translate into higher journal placement, encouraging safer, incremental publication strategies. Together, these patterns depict a discipline that is larger and more productive than ever yet is increasingly organized around measurable outputs, rather than intellectual risk-taking or theoretical innovation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Calculation and Conscience: Motivations for the Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minorities

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2026-02-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Existing work shows that minority legislators are more likely to represent their group's interests compared to dominant group legislators. However, it is unclear whether this is due to intrinsic motivations or electoral incentives. We use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to analyze ethnic minority representation in the UK Parliament. By comparing white MPs who narrowly beat minority candidates to minority MPs who narrowly beat white candidates, the RDD controls for electoral incentives since it holds constant constituency factors correlated with a minority parliamentary win. Analyzing over 1 million parliamentary questions and speeches, we find that minority MPs are more likely than white MPs to discuss issues important to ethnic minorities. Additional evidence suggests that narrowly elected MPs face similar electoral incentives and that minority MPs representing minorities face reelection penalties. Our findings are consistent with the idea that minority substantive representation is driven at least in part by intrinsic motivations.

  Publisher

• The Evolving Landscape of Political Science: Two Decades of Scholarship in a Growing Discipline

  2025-06-23 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This study analyzes the evolution of political science (PS) scholarship using 140,000+ articles from 174 journals (2003–2023). We examine how structural changes ---shrinking job markets and increased reliance on publication metrics--- affect what gets studied and how. Growing publication pressures push younger scholars to publish more, yet the tripling of PS publication volume stems from a larger contributor base, not individual output. On a positive note, structural shifts have made PS more collaborative, with efficiency gains from team research outweighing credit diffusion. Contrary to fears of topical narrowing, our text-as-data analysis shows consistent topical diversity, though higher-ranked journals form a distinct ecosystem with unique methodological preferences. We also identify a key tradeoff: topically novel work tends to earn more citations over time but faces hurdles in prestigious journal publication. These findings enhance our understanding of how academic production systems shape the nature of intellectual progress in the discipline.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Calculation and Conscience: Motivations for the Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minorities

  2025-01-09

  preprintOpen access

  A vast body of work shows that ethnic and racial minority legislators are more likely to represent their group's interests compared to dominant group legislators. However, it is unclear whether this is due to intrinsic motivation or electoral incentives. We argue that previous research designs cannot answer this question. Conversely, we use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to analyze the increase in minority representation in the UK Parliament after 2010. By comparing white MPs who narrowly beat minority candidates to minority MPs who narrowly beat white candidates, the RDD controls for electoral incentives since it holds constant constituency factors correlated with a minority parliamentary win. Analyzing over 1 million parliamentary speeches and questions, we find that minority MPs are more likely than white MPs to discuss issues important to ethnic minorities. Our findings suggest that minority substantive representation is likely driven, at least in part, by minority MPs' intrinsic motivation.

  PublisherDOI

• Do More Disaggregated Electoral Results Deter Aggregation Fraud?

  2025-05-02

  preprintOpen access

  The level of aggregation at which electoral results are published can impact election integrity. Publishing results at a more granular level—such as the polling station—enables civil society watchdogs to independently verify vote totals, helping deter aggregation fraud. While this logic undergirds the recommendations of international organizations monitoring elections to publish more granular electoral results, to date there have not been systematic assessments of how variation in aggregation is linked to electoral miscounting. We address this gap by assembling a novel dataset on the granularity of electoral results in 123 low- and middle-income countries since 2000. Our findings reveal a strong negative relationship between reporting granularity and indicators of vote count irregularities. Importantly, we find no evidence that greater transparency leads to substitution into other forms of electoral manipulation, such as violence or clientelism, as measured by expert-based indicators.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Replication Data for: Political Science Under Pressure: Competition and Collaboration in a Growing Discipline, 2003-2023

  Open MIND · 2025-12-03 · 1 citations

  dataset

  This replication package contains all code and data necessary to reproduce all replicable figures and tables in the main text and supplementary materials of "Political Science Under Pressure: Competition and Collaboration in a Growing Discipline, 2003–2023"

  DOI

• The Credibility Revolution in Political Science

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2025-12-02

  articleOpen access

  How has the credibility revolution shaped political science? We address this question by classifying 91,632 articles published between 2003 and 2023 across 156 political science journals using large language models, focusing on research design, credibility-enhancing practices, and citation patterns. We find that design-based studies -- those leveraging plausibly exogenous variation to justify causal claims -- have become increasingly common and receive a citation premium. In contrast, model-based approaches that rely on strong modeling assumptions have declined. Yet the rise of design-based work is uneven: it is concentrated in top journals and among authors at highly ranked institutions, and it is driven primarily by the growth of survey experiments. Other credibility-enhancing practices that help reduce false positives and false negatives, such as placebo tests and power calculations, remain rare. Taken together, our findings point to substantial but selective change, more consistent with a partial reform than a revolution.

  PublisherOA PDF

Frequent coauthors

• Macartan Humphreys

  33 shared

• Susan Hyde

  University of California, San Francisco

  25 shared

• Jonathan Rodden

  Stanford University

  24 shared

• Melina Platas

  New York University Abu Dhabi

  22 shared

• Romain Ferrali

  Aix-Marseille Université

  19 shared

• Jeremy M. Weinstein

  19 shared

• Donald P. Green

  Columbia University

  15 shared

• Kevin Arceneaux

  University of Amsterdam

  15 shared

Education

• PhD, Political Science

  Columbia University

  2011