We present a legislative bargaining model of the provision of a durable public good over an infinite horizion. In each period, there is a societal endowment which can either be invested in the public good or consumed. We characterize the optimal public policy, defined by the time path of...

We study dynamic committee bargaining over an infinite horizon with discounting. In each period a committee proposal is generated by a random recognition rule, the committee chooses between the proposal and a status quo by majority rule, and the voting outcome in period t becomes the status quo...

We experimentally investigate information aggregation through majority voting when some voters are biased. In such situations, majority voting can have a dark side, that is, result in groups making choices inferior to those made by individuals acting alone. In line with theoretical predictions,...

We exploit a voting reform in France to estimate the causal effect of exit poll information on turnout and bandwagon voting. Before the change in legislation, individuals in some French overseas territories voted after the election result had already been made public via exit poll information...

We consider a model of two-candidate elections with a one-dimensional policy space. Spending on campaign advertisements can directly influence voters' preferences, and contributors give the money for campaign spending in exchange for promised services if the candidate wins. we find that the...

We study symmetric play in a class of repeated games when players are patient. We show that, while the use of symmetric strategy profiles essentially does not restrict the set of feasible payoffs, the set of equilibrium payoffs is an interesting proper subset of the feasible and individually...

We study symmetric play in a class of repeated games when players are patient. We show that, while the use of symmetric strategy profiles essentially does not restrict the set of feasible payoffs, the set of equilibrium payoffs is an interesting proper subset of the feasible and individually...

This paper presents a dynamic political economy theory of public spending, taxation and debt. Policy choices are made by a legislature consisting of representatives elected by geographically-defined districts. The legislature can raise revenues via a distortionary income tax and by borrowing....

We explore the conditions under which the "first-order approach" (FO-approach) can be used to characterize profit maximizing contracts in dynamic principal-agent models. The FO-approach works when the resulting FO-optimal contract satisfies a particularly strong form of monotonicity in types, a...