This paper studies the political determinants of inequality in government interventions under the majoritarian and proportional representation systems. Using a model of electoral competition with targetable government intervention and heterogeneous localities, we uncover a novel relative...

We propose a theory of small campaign contributions driven by an electoral motive, i.e., the desire to influence election outcomes. Though small donors take as given the actions of others, strategic interactions induce patterns consistent with empirical findings, e.g., election closeness and...

Beliefs about whether effort pays off govern some of the most fundamental choices individuals make. This paper uses China's Cultural Revolution to understand how these beliefs can be affected, how they impact behavior, and how they are transmitted across generations. During the Cultural...

We investigate the impact of U.S. bombing on later economic development in Vietnam. The Vietnam War featured the most intense bombing campaign in military history and had massive humanitarian costs. We use a unique U.S. military dataset containing bombing intensity at the district level (N=584)....

We construct an endogenous growth model that includes a cultural variable along the dimension of individualism-collectivism. The model predicts that more individualism leads to more innovation because of the social rewards associated with innovation in an individualist culture. This cultural...

We present a theoretical model of a parliamentary democracy, where party structures, government coalitions and fiscal policies are endogenously determined. The model predicts that, relative to proportional elections, majoritarian elections reduce government spending because they reduce party...

We construct a model of revolution and transition to democracy under individualistic and collectivist cultures. The main result is that, despite facing potentially larger collective action problems, countries with an individualistic culture are more likely to end up adopting democracy earlier...

This paper develops a model of global sourcing with culturally dissimilar countries. Production of final goods requires the coordination of decisions between the headquarter of a multinational firm and managers of their component suppliers. Managers of both units are assumed to have strong...