This paper shows why a majority of legislators may vote for a policy that benefits a firm but harms all legislators. The firm may induce legislators to support the policy by suggesting that it is more likely to invest in a district where voters or their representative support the policy. In...

Though few voters appear to hold consistent ideological views, the roll call votes of congressmen and senators can be well predicted by ideological terms. An explanation for this puzzle is that ideology allows candidates to succinctly explain their views. Because it is difficult to explain...

One approach to avoiding the implications of Arrow's paradox is to impose restrictions on the preferences of voters. A restriction often assumed in the literature is that voters' preferences can be represented by a choice among points in a space, where voters' preferences are convex. We claim...

We consider n firms which choose rent-seeking expenditures sequentially, each player anticipating the rent-seeking expenditures that will be made by later movers. We find that the earlier movers need not make larger profits than later movers, and that aggregate profits are lower than in a game...

Consider a government that adopts a program, sees a noisy signal about its success, and decides whether to continue the program. Suppose further that the success of a program is greater if people think it will be continued. This paper considers outcomes when government cannot commit. We find...

Consider a government that adopts a program, sees a noisy signal about its success, and decides whether to continue the program. Suppose further that the success of a program is greater if people think it will be continued. This paper considers outcomes when government cannot commit. The authors...

The authors extend the standard Downsian framework to suppose that voters consider the identity of each candidate's supporters when deciding whom to support, rather than considering only the announced policy positions of the candidates. In particular, they posit the existence of a class of...

Legislators will enact programs that encourage rent-seeking only if they can thereby increase their chances of winn ing election or of receiving contributions themselves. This paper shows rent-seeking to be electorally robust--both voters and contributors will often avoid a candidate who...