For 1990-2019, this study presents two-step GMM estimates of EU members' demands for defense spending based on alternative spatial-weight matrices. In particular, EU spatial connectivity is tied to EU membership status, members' contiguity, contiguity and power projection, inverse distance, and...

The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union has had profound economic and political effects. Here, we look at a particular aspect, the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. Using the Shapley-Shubik power index, we calculate the member states' powers with and without...

Electoral thresholds in the context of parliamentary elections are an instrument for preventing the fragmentation of parliaments and facilitate the formation of a coalition government. However, the clauses also introduce distortions and modify the equality of electoral votes in an election. In...

Under the 'new normal' in the labor market, individuals can work remotely or in person, a hybrid work mode that became ubiquitous during the pandemic. This paper studies the efficiency of decentralized leadership in federations in which hybrid work is the modus operandi. Self-interested regional...

In imperfectly discriminating contests with symmetric valuations, equilibrium payoffs are positive shares of the value of the prize. In contrast to a bargaining situation, players' shares sum to less than one because a residual share of the value is lost due to rent dissipation. In this paper,...

In imperfectly discriminating contests with symmetric valuations, equilibrium payoffs are positive shares of the value of the prize. In contrast to a bargaining situation, players’ shares sum to less than one because a residual share of the value is lost due to rent dissipation. In this paper,...

This paper proposes a model of a legislature, formed by several parties, which has to vote for or against a certain bill in the presence of a lobbyist interested in a certain vote outcome. We show that the ease with which the lobbyist can manipulate a legislature decision increases with the...

This paper experimentally investigates free-riding behavior on communication cost in a coordination game and finds strong indications of such free-riding. Firstly, the subjects wait for others to send a message when communication is costly, which does not happen when communication is costless....