In public good games, voluntary contributions tend to start off high and decline as the game is repeated. If high contributors are matched, however, contributions tend to stay high. We propose a formalization predicting that high contributors will self-select into groups committed to charitable...

Rain affects electoral turnout both through a direct effect on the cost of voting and by changing the opportunity cost. In a panel of Norwegian municipalities I find that rain on Election Day increases turnout. As turnout affects electoral outcomes, rain provides an exogeneous source of...

We show that the recent rise in Afghan opium production is caused by violent conflicts. Violence destroys roads and irrigation, crucial to alternative crops, and weakens local incentives to rebuild infrastructure and enforce law and order. Exploiting a unique data set, we show that Western...

No voters cast their votes based on perfect information, but better educated and richer voters are on average better informed than others. We develop a model where the voting mistakes resulting from low political knowledge reduce the weight of poor voters, and cause parties to choose political...

In democratic societies with skewed income distributions, simple political economy models predict that the poor will form a coalition to implement high taxes. I review this basic theory and some of its extensions. Then I discuss how we can test the model, and some common pitfalls, before I...

In public good games, voluntary contributions tend to start o high and decline as the game is repeated. If high contributors are matched, however, contributions tend to stay high. We propose a formalization predicting that high contributors will selfselect into groups committed to charitable...

The time series nature of repeated surveys is seldom taken into account. I present a statistical model of repeated surveys and construct a computationally feasible estimator based on the Kalman filter. The novelty is that the estimator efficiently uses the whole underlying data set. However, for...

A common approach to defining equivalence scales is to consider a household modelled as if it maximizes a single utility function. This may be founded on an assumption of the household maximizing a welfare function of individual utilities. For a positive analysis of the household, this may be...

To explain the rise in Afghan opium production, we explore how rising conflicts change the incentives of farmers. Conflicts make illegal opportunities more profitable as they increase the perceived lawlessness and destroy infrastructure crucial to alternative crops. Exploiting a unique data set,...

Advanced economies have a longer history of leveraging fiscal policy to address inequality relative to developing Asia. We examine the country experiences of the Nordic countries, France, Japan, and the US, to draw lessons for developing Asia in its relatively new quest to use fiscal policy to...