@book{matter2025a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={An Introduction to Web Mining: with Applications in R},year={2025},series={Use R!},publisher={Springer Nature},address={Cham, Switzerland},doi={10.1007/978-3-031-96638-5},isbn={978-3-031-96637-8},url={https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-96638-5},}
2024
Special Interest Groups Versus Voters and the Political Economics of Attention
We investigate whether US House representatives favour special interest groups over constituents in periods of low media attention to politics. Analysing 666 roll calls from 2005 to 2018, we show that representatives are more likely to vote against their constituency’s preferred position the more special interest money they receive from groups favouring the opposite position. The latter effect is significantly larger when less attention is paid to politics due to distraction by exogenous newsworthy events like natural disasters. The effect is mostly driven by short-term opportunistic behaviour than the short-term scheduling of controversial votes in periods with high news pressure.
@article{balles_etal2024,author={Balles, Patrick and Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={{Special Interest Groups Versus Voters and the Political Economics of Attention}},journal={The Economic Journal},volume={134},number={662},pages={2290-2320},year={2024},month=may,issn={0013-0133},doi={10.1093/ej/ueae020},}
@techreport{matter_hodler2024,author={Matter, Ulrich and Hodler, Roland},title={Web Search Personalization During the US 2020 Election},institution={CEPR},year={2024},number={DP18908},url={https://cepr.org/publications/dp18908},status={Accepted at AER:I}}
2023
Big Data Analytics: A Guide to Data Science Practitioners Making the Transition to Big Data
@book{matter2023a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Big Data Analytics: A Guide to Data Science Practitioners Making the Transition to Big Data},year={2023},series={Data Science Series},publisher={Chapman \& Hall, CRC Press},address={Boca Raton, FL},}
While recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are already contributing value to the economy and society, fears of massive job losses are increasingly coming to the forefront of political debate. Against this backdrop, this paper sheds light on the relationship between AI technology and potential workforce vulnerability. We developed a novel measure to quantify the potential exposure of occupations, considering unaffectedness, substitution, and complementarity effects, incorporating a task-technology fit perspective. We contrasted the measure with data on employment, education, and wages in Switzerland to examine the impact of AI at the aggregate level. The results indicate that about 10 percent of the Swiss workforce is strongly affected by AI substitution due to their specific task content. In contrast, AI can complement 61 percent of the Swiss workforce in about half of their current tasks, eventually increasing individual performance. Occupations in the finance and insurance and professional, scientific, and technical services sectors can benefit most from the complementary effects of AI. In contrast, occupations in the accommodation and food services sector are most affected by AI substitution. In addition, we found substitution to be most prevalent in low-skilled occupations, requiring lower levels of education and inhibiting lower wage levels.
@article{doi:10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract,author={Jaeggi, Timon and Schaefer, Benjamin and Dietzmann, Christian and Jung, Reinhard and Matter, Ulrich},title={Are Our Jobs at Risk? Estimating the Effect of Artificial Intelligence on the Swiss Labor Market},journal={Academy of Management Proceedings},volume={2023},number={1},pages={11166},year={2023},doi={10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract},url={
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract
},eprint={
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract
}}
This paper examines the role of local TV market structure in U.S. congressional politics, exploiting variation in the overlaps of political markets and TV markets. Local TV stations are hypothesized to report relatively more per U.S. House representative in less populous markets (where the number of House districts covered is smaller), leading to better-informed voters and more accountable representatives. We find that smaller markets are indeed associated with (i) higher coverage of representatives and (ii) a higher level of voters’ knowledge about their representatives. However, (iii) representatives of smaller and more congruent markets are only more likely to decide aligned with their constituents’ policy preferences in highly competitive districts. This evidence suggests that local political news coverage on TV serves as a complement rather than a substitute in holding members of the U.S. Congress accountable.
@article{BALLES2023102459,title={Television Market Size and Political Accountability in the U.S. House of Representatives},journal={European Journal of Political Economy},volume={80},pages={102459},year={2023},issn={0176-2680},doi={https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102459},url={https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268023001039},author={Balles, Patrick and Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},keywords={Political accountability, Market congruence, Media coverage, TV markets, Legislative voting, U.S. Congress, Voter knowledge, Campaign finance}}
2021
Data Pipelines in Big Data Analytics
Ulrich Matter
In Big Data Analytics – Grundlagen, Fallbeispiele und Nutzungspotenziale, May 2021
@incollection{matter2021,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Data Pipelines in Big Data Analytics},editor={D'Onofrio, S. and Meier, A.},booktitle={Big Data Analytics -- Grundlagen, Fallbeispiele und Nutzungspotenziale},publisher={Springer},year={2021},}
@techreport{matter_widmer2021,author={Matter, Ulrich and Widmer, Philine},year={2021},title={Who Owns the Online Media?},institution={University of St.Gallen},note={Available at SSRN},status={RnR at AEJ:EP}}
@techreport{guerrero_matter2021,author={Guerrero, Omar and Matter, Ulrich},year={2021},title={Quantifying Vote Trading Through Network Reciprocity},institution={School of Economics and Political Science, University of St.Gallen},type={SEPS-HSG Discussion Paper},number={2021-06},status={RnR at Soc. Netw.}}
@book{matter2020a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Big Public Data from the Programmable Web},year={2020},series={Springer Essentials},publisher={Springer Vieweg},address={Wiesbaden},}
@article{matter_stutzer2019,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={Does Public Attention Reduce the Influence of Moneyed Interests? Policy Positions on SOPA/PIPA Before and After the Internet Blackout},doi={https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12812},journal={Economic Inquiry},volume={57},number={4},pages={1879-1895},year={2019},}
Sci Cult
Metrics of Inequality: The Concentration of Resources in the U.S. Biomedical Elite
@article{katz_matter2019,author={Katz, Yarden and Matter, Ulrich},title={Metrics of Inequality: The Concentration of Resources in the U.S. Biomedical Elite},journal={Science as Culture},pages={1-28},year={2019},publisher={Routledge},doi={10.1080/09505431.2019.1694882},}
Ulrich Matter Recommends ’Towards a Political Theory of the Firm’ by Luigi Zingales
Ulrich Matter
In 21st Century Economics – Economic Ideas You Should Read and Remember, May 2019
@incollection{matter2019b,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Ulrich Matter Recommends 'Towards a Political Theory of the Firm' by Luigi Zingales},editor={Frey, Bruno S. and Schaltegger, Christoph A.},booktitle={21st Century Economics -- Economic Ideas You Should Read and Remember},publisher={Springer},address={Cham},year={2019},}
@article{matter2019a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Big Public Data from the Programmable Web: Opportunities and Challenges},journal={HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik (Special Issue on Big Data Analytics)},year={2019},pages={1068–1081},volume={56},number={5},doi={http://doi.org/10.1365/s40702-019-00525-6},}
@techreport{matter_etal2019,author={Matter, Ulrich and Roberti, Paolo and Slotwinski, Michaela},year={2019},title={Vote Buying in the US Congress},institution={CESifo, Munich},type={CESifo Working Paper},number={7841},}
@article{matter_2018,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={RWebData: A High-Level Interface to the Programmable Web},journal={Journal of Open Research Software},volume={6},number={1},pages={1-12},year={2018},doi={http://doi.org/10.5334/jors.201},}
@article{matter_stutzer2016,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={The Role of Party Politics in Medical Malpractice Tort Reforms},journal={European Journal of Political Economy},volume={42},number={},pages={17-35},year={2016},note={},issn={0176-2680},doi={http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.01.001},}
@article{matter_stutzer2015b,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},journal={PLOS ONE},publisher={Public Library of Science},title={pvsR: An Open Source Interface to Big Data on the American Political Sphere},year={2015},month=jul,volume={10},url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0130501},pages={1-21},number={7},doi={10.1371/journal.pone.0130501},}
@article{matter_stutzer2015a,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={The Role of Lawyer-Legislators in Shaping the Law: Evidence from Voting on Tort Reforms},journal={Journal of Law and Economics},volume={58},number={2},pages={357-384},year={2015},doi={10.1086/684039},}
Data Pipelines in Big Data AnalyticsIn Big Data Analytics – Grundlagen, Fallbeispiele und Nutzungspotenziale, May 2021
Ulrich Matter Recommends ’Towards a Political Theory of the Firm’ by Luigi ZingalesIn 21st Century Economics – Economic Ideas You Should Read and Remember, May 2019