We analyze how religion affects voting and redistribution. Our model directs attention away from the particular faith, belief or risk attitudes of religious individuals, and emphasizes instead how organized religion opens the door to standard group-based distributive politics. We argue that...

We analyze how religion affects voting and redistribution. Our model directs attention away from the particular faith, belief or risk attitudes of religious individuals, and emphasizes instead how organized religion opens the door to standard group-based distributive politics. We argue that...

In most modern democracies elected officials can work in the private sector while appointed in parliament. We show that when the political and market sectors are not mutually exclusive, a trade-off arises between the quality of elected officials and the time they devote to political life. If...

We present a simple theory of the quality (competence and honesty) of elected officials. Our theoryoffers three main insights. Low-quality citizens have a ‘comparative advantage’ in pursuing electiveoffice, because their market wages are lower than those of high-quality citizens...

All OECD countries target a large majority of their welfare spending to the elderly, through public pensions and health care programs. Spending in both programs has largely increased in the past decades -- often more than the share of elderly in the population. We suggest that these phenomena...