Julia Payson

Julia Payson is an Assistant Professor in NYU's Wilf Family Department of Politics and a faculty research affiliate with NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics. For the 2020-2021 academic year, Payson was a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University.

Payson’s studies include representation, accountability, and public service provision in state and local governments in the U.S. Her book, When Cities Lobby: How Local Interests Shape State Politics, explores why some local governments hire lobbyists to represent them at the state and federal level and examines the financial implications of intergovernmental lobbying on municipal inequality. This research received support from the National Science Foundation and the Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences.