Models of nomination politics in the US often find "gridlock" in equilibrium because of the super-majority requirement in the Senate for the confirmation of presidential nominees. A blocking coalition often prefers to defeat any nominee. Yet empirically nominations are successful. In the present...

Separated powers cannot permanently constrain individual ambitions. Concerns about a government's ability to respond to contemporary and future crises, we show, invariably compromise the principled commitments one branch of government has in limiting the authority of another. We study a dynamic...

We take a garden-variety instance of distributive politics-- a divide-the-cake stage game -- and explore dynamic extensions in different institutional settings: (i) repeated play of the stage game in a simultaneous-term unicameral legislature; (ii) repeated play in a staggered-term unicameral...

"This theme paper focuses on political institutions and their effects on social choice. Institutions are argued to play a mediating rolebetween the preferences of individuals and social choices. In addition to playing an endogenous role in molding and channeling preferences, institutions...