Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or influence...

The standard analysis of the efficient management of income taxes and debt assumes a benevolent government and ignores potential distortions arising from rent-seeking politicians. This paper departs from this framework by assuming that a rent-seeking politician chooses policies. If the...

We study the (perfect Bayesian) equilibrium of a sequential learning model over a general social network. Each individual receives a signal about the underlying state of the world, observes the past actions of a stochastically generated neighbourhood of individuals, and chooses one of two...

This paper develops a model to analyse how skill premia differ over time and across countries, and uses this model to study the impact of international trade on wage inequality. Skill premia are determined by technology, the relative supply of skills, and trade. Technology is itself endogenous,...

We study the formation of a ruling coalition in non-democratic societies where institutions do not enable political commitments. Each individual is endowed with a level of political power. The ruling coalition consists of a subset of the individuals in the society and decides the distribution of...

This paper shows that in a frictional labor market part of the productivity gains from general training will be captured by future employers. As a result, investments in general skills will be suboptimally low, and contrary to the standard theory, part of the costs may be borne by the employers....

We study the (perfect Bayesian) equilibrium of a sequential learning model over a general social network. Each individual receives a signal about the underlying state of the world, observes the past actions of a stochastically generated neighbourhood of individuals, and chooses one of two...

This paper develops a model to analyse how skill premia differ over time and across countries, and uses this model to study the impact of international trade on wage inequality. Skill premia are determined by technology, the relative supply of skills, and trade. Technology is itself endogenous,...

We study the formation of a ruling coalition in non-democratic societies where institutions do not enable political commitments. Each individual is endowed with a level of political power. The ruling coalition consists of a subset of the individuals in the society and decides the distribution of...