In a symmetric information voting model, an individual (information controller) can influence voters’ choices by designing the information content of a public signal. We characterize the controller’s optimal signal. With a non-unanimous voting rule, she exploits voters’ heterogeneity by...

A number of recent formal models predict a positive effect of political knowledge on turnout. Both information acquisition and turnout, however, are likely to be determined by a similar set of variables, rendering hard the identification of a causal link in empirical investigations. Available...

Institutions that serve the interests of an elite are often cited as an important reason for poor economic performance. This paper builds a model of institutions that allocate resources and power to maximize the payoff of an elite, but where any group that exerts sufficient fighting effort can...

We consider the impact of history on the survival of a monopolist selling single units in discrete time periods, whose quality is learned slowly. If the seller learns her own quality at the same rate as customers, a sufficiently bad run of luck could induce her to stop selling. When she knows...

The welfare economic method for analyzing the case for government intervention is often critized for ignoring the political determination of policies. The standard method of accounting for this critique studies the case for intervention under the constraint that the level of the instrument in...

We study the mechanisms through which the adoption of the Euro delayed, rather than advanced, economic reforms in the Euro zone periphery and led to the deterioration of important institutions in these countries. We show that the abandonment of the reform process and the institutional...

This paper analyses whether the German National Socialists used economic policies to reward their voters after their rise to power in 1933. Using data on public employment in the armed forces, public administrations and related professions from the German occupational censuses in 1925, 1933 and...