Open AccessPublic Impacts from Elite Audit Experiments: Aggregate and Response Delay Harms
Author(s) -
Scott Desposato
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
political studies review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.806
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1478-9302
pISSN - 1478-9299
DOI - 10.1177/14789299211059657
Subject(s) - elite , audit , work (physics) , public economics , aggregate (composite) , business , economics , political science , accounting , law , politics , engineering , mechanical engineering , materials science , composite material
What are the potential harms from elite audit experiments? Such studies seem genuinely harmless and all in a day’s work for elites. In addition, such studies may provide valuable information about elites’ performance and service to their publics. However, there are a number of potential harms of such studies which are generally not captured by the standard human subjects framework. In this essay, I consider the various harms that can result from excessive experimentation on elites. I identify several previously ignored public harms, including aggregate and response delay harms. I offer several potential strategies to assuage and avoid these harms.