The emphasis on constitutional political economy has been that new rules and institutions can be devised that improve the welfare of a society. Given the number of societies that are infected with political conflict and, as a result, lower levels of welfare, this paper attempts to analyze why we...

The conventional explanation for strikes is that they are caused by an asymmetry of information about the profitability of the firm — union members are uninformed whereas management are informed. Instead, this paper builds a model of strikes where a perception of unfairness provides an...

This paper extends the political agency approach to an environment in which voting is categorised into informed and instrumental, informed and ‘expressive’, and uninformed due to ‘rational irrationality’. Politicians may be “good”, “bad”, or “populist”. Initially the...

This article reviews 'Pillars of Prosperity' by Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson and 'Why Nations Fail' by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Both books are focussed on the role of institutions in determining the wealth of nations and the review compares and contrasts the different approaches...

Brennan and Hamlin (1998) predict that moderates are more likely to be expressive rather than instrumental voters, but do not test this hypothesis. Greene and Nelson (2002) claim to reject this, by finding that extremists are as likely to vote as moderates. We argue that Greene and Nelson's...

This paper reviews four economic theories of leadership selection in conflict settings. The 'credibility rationale', argues that hawks may actually be necessary to initiate peace agreements. The 'bargaining rationale' predicts that while doves are more likely to secure peace, post-conflict hawks...