We link a new database of politically exposed persons with the complete register of firms established in Mozambique since Independence. Focusing on the network of connections between firm owners, we use a generalized event study analysis to show that holders of political office achieve...

This article investigates the relationship between patterns of elite accumulation and conflict dynamics in Mozambique's natural-resource economy, with a specific focus on the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province. Utilizing the politics of anticipation and the accumulation by dispossession and...

Economic and social situations where groups have to compete are ubiquitous. Such group contests create both a coordination problem within and between groups. Introducing leaders may help to mitigate these coordination problems. However, little is known about the effect of leadership in group...

Economic and social situations where groups have to compete are ubiquitous. Such group contests create both a coordination problem within and between groups. Introducing leaders may help to mitigate these coordination problems. However, little is known about the effect of leadership in group...

Transparency initiatives are well-known tools to foster trust and empower citizens. To explain why some governments introduce them but others do not, we model these initiatives as a signal that complements the information provided by visible government performance and conduct a randomized survey...

We synthesize research on conflict as a fundamental economic phenomenon, arguing that the implications of the "dark side of self-interest" have received insufficient attention in economics. We define conflict as interactions where parties choose costly inputs that are adversarially combined...

We examine how political capitalism can develop within modern states that typically have many types of checks and balances. We first discuss how this can occur through various influence channels: government executive and regulatory agencies, legislators, litigation, the press, and the public...

We examine EU and UK plans for achieving a fossil-free energy system by 2050, centered on massive electrification and large-scale deployment of wind and solar power. Using empirical trends, cost analyses, and system-function assessments, we argue that current strategies underestimate real...

A large body of literature studies the relationship between corruption and economic outcomes, including government revenue mobilization, but there is little evidence on how this relationship changes during times of crisis. Using a comprehensive panel dataset covering up to 194 countries in the...

I study sequential contests where the efforts of earlier players may be disclosed to later players by nature or by design. The model has many applications, including rent seeking, R&D, oligopoly, public goods provision, and tragedy of the commons. I show that information about other players'...

Status-seeking exists in all societies but different societies value status differently. How does the importance of social status affect the mode of status-seeking? I consider a game in which status can be achieved through productive effort that increases wealth or through a contest in which...

While the literature extensively explores the structural enablers of corruption and its adverse effects on economic performance, less is known about how the state of the economy influences corruption and political accountability. To address this gap, we develop a theoretical model in which...

Understanding disparities in contest success is central to explaining how competition shapes the distribution of rewards, influence, or market shares. We introduce the Proportional Play Equilibrium (PPE), a boundedly rational alternative to Nash Equilibrium (NE) grounded in the Illusion of...

Herein, we further examine how we can value nonmarket goods and services by considering the costs associated with environmental conflicts. Focusing on two American rules-the asymmetric reimbursement system and the contingent fee contract-we develop a strategic game-theoretic model in which a...

We examine EU and UK plans for achieving a fossil-free energy system by 2050, centered on massive electrification and large-scale deployment of wind and solar power. Using empirical trends, cost analyses, and systemfunction assessments, we argue that current strategies underestimate real...

This paper revisits the n-player rent-seeking contest with homogeneous valuations and increasing returns. Our main result says that, for any m ∈ {2, . . . , n − 1}, there are threshold values 1 R∗(m) R∗ (m) ≤ 2 for the Tullock parameter R such that a pure strategy equilibrium with m...

We estimate the effect of winning a mayoral election on long-run licit earnings, which plays a key role in the selection of local political leaders. We use Italian administrative social security data from 1995 to 2017 and a sharp regression discontinuity design based on close elections. Over a...