Computer-assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change.

A growing body of scholarship investigates the role of misinformation in shaping the debate on climate change. Our research builds on and extends this literature by (1) developing and validating a comprehensive taxonomy of climate contrarianism, (2) conducting the largest content analysis to date on contrarian claims, (3) developing a computational model to accurately classify specific claims, and (4) drawing on an extensive corpus from conservative think-tank (CTTs) websites and contrarian blogs to construct a detailed history of claims over the past 20 years. Our study finds that the claims utilized by CTTs and contrarian blogs have focused on attacking the integrity of climate science and scientists and, increasingly, has challenged climate policy and renewable energy.

Towards comprehensive malaria planning: the effect of government capacity, health policy, and land use variables on malaria incidence in India.

We present what we believe is the first empirical research that accounts for subnational government capacity in estimating malaria incidence. After controlling for relevant extrinsic factors, we find evidence of a negative effect of state government capacity on reported malaria cases in Indian states over the period 1993-2002. Government capacity is more successful in predicting malaria incidence than potentially more direct indicators such as state public health expenditures and economic development levels.