Nicolás Idrobo

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Postdoctoral Research Associate
Program for Quantitative and Analytical Political Science (QAPS)
Department of Politics
Princeton University

Welcome to my website.

I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Program for Quantitative and Analytical Political Science (QAPS) in the Department of Politics at Princeton University.

I study the political economy of authoritarian rule, electoral integrity, and the politics of crime and security, with a regional focus on Latin America. My job market paper develops a formal model and uses Venezuelan administrative microdata to show how economic sanctions can reshape an electorate by accelerating the selective emigration of regime opponents. This is one unintended consequence that helps explain why external pressure on autocracies so often fails to dislodge them.

A second strand of my work examines electoral integrity and the detection of fraud, including evidence that shifts in late-counted votes in Bolivia’s 2019 election did not, on their own, signal fraud. A third studies how institutional reform shapes crime, policing, and criminal justice in Colombia.

I also work on applied political methodology, particularly causal inference and regression discontinuity designs, and I am a co-author of the two-volume A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs (Cambridge University Press).

My work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, World Development, and with Cambridge University Press, among other outlets.

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Main publications

  1. Idrobo, Nicolás, Dorothy Kronick, and Francisco Rodríguez. 2026. “On Unfounded Claims of Electoral Fraud.” World Development 198: 107155.
    Final draft | Replication | Publication

  2. Cattaneo, Matias D., Nicolás Idrobo, and Rocío Titiunik. 2024. A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Extensions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Final draft | Replication | Publication

  3. Idrobo, Nicolás, Dorothy Kronick, and Francisco Rodríguez. 2022. “Do Shifts in Late-Counted Votes Signal Fraud? Evidence from Bolivia.” The Journal of Politics 84(4): 2202–2215.
    Final draft | Replication | Publication | Media coverage: NYT (English, Spanish), Crisis Group
    OAS Response | Nooruddin’s Response | Our Response to Nooruddin

  4. Cattaneo, Matias D., Nicolás Idrobo, and Rocío Titiunik. 2020. A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Foundations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Final draft | Replication | Publication | Erratum

  5. Idrobo, Nicolás, Daniel Mejía, and Ana María Tribín. 2014. “Illegal Gold Mining and Violence in Colombia.” Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 20(1): 83–111.
    Publication

Working papers

  1. [Job market paper, new version] Sanctions and Selective Opposition Exit: Evidence from Venezuela. May 2026.
    Revisions requested by the American Political Science Review.
    Latest draft | SSRN

  2. How Police and Crime Respond to Courts: Evidence from Colombia, with Dorothy Kronick and Tara Slough. November 2025.
    Revisions requested by the American Journal of Political Science.
    Latest draft

Work in progress

  1. Waves Apart: The Limits of Pre-Trends Tests in Sparse Panels, with Carolina Torreblanca. May 2026.

  2. Rewarding Loyalty: Discretionary Pensions and Public Jobs under Chavismo. May 2026.

  3. The Advent of the Inference Era: Science Production in Economics and Political Science since 1970, with Arthur Lupia, Hwayong Shin and Rocío Titiunik. February 2025.

  4. The Hidden Power of Money: How Campaign Contributions to Legislators Buy Legislative Influence, with Pablo Querubin, Miguel Rueda and Nelson Ruiz. February 2025.

  5. Covariate Distributions and Feasible Questions in Comparative Politics and Political Economy, with Rocío Titiunik. October 2023.