We model a two-candidate electoral competition in which there is uncertainty about a policy-relevant state of the world. The candidates receive private signals about the true state, which are imperfectly correlated. We study whether the candidates are able to credibly communicate their...

I develop a model of rent seeking with informational foundations and an arbitrary number of rent seekers, and I compare the results with Tullock's (1980) classic model where the influence activities are "black-boxed." Given the microfoundations, the welfare consequences of rent seeking can be...

Experimental evidence stresses the importance of so-called social preferences for understanding economic behavior. Social preferences are defined over the entire allocation in a given economic environment, and not just over one's own consumption as is traditionally presumed. We study the...