With respect to the election of the U.S. President, the U.S. Constitution is vague and full of silences and gaps. Responding to the constitutional crisis of 1876, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA) attempted to offer more specific rules. The ECA was a major advance, but in important ways, it...

The paper looks at the persistence of egalitarian norms in post-Communist societies by focusing on the former members of the Communist parties in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia and their children. Using the individual-level survey data, we show that there are striking differences...

This paper provides new proofs for some properties of the instant runoff voting rule, namely clone-proofness and strict social disappointment criterion. We show that instant runoff voting, contrary to most voting protocols, is not only immune to the strategic nomination, but also does not...

This paper uncovers evidence of political cycles in developmental outcomes in the Indian context. Comparing children born to the same mother, it shows that children born 0-11 months before scheduled state legislative assembly elections have a significantly lower risk of neonatal mortality. The...

Do smaller local governments provide more for their citizens, especially when they are also held accountable to their citizens This paper extends the empirical literature on the size of local governments by explicitly exploring one of the key influencing factors - direct local elections, a proxy...

We develop a numerical model that simulates the evolution of a virtual population with an incentive and ability-based wage, capital yield from savings, social welfare system, and total income subject to taxation and political turnovers. Meta-heuristics, particle swarm optimization (PSO) in...