In recent years, concerns about misinformation in the media have skyrocketed. President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that various news outlets are disseminating "fake news" for political purposes. But when the information contained in mainstream media news reports provides no clear clues...

At borders where rich and poor countries meet, services prices differ hugely. In principle, price differentials could be exploited to mutual benefit, offering improved job opportunities to the poor as well as better shopping opportunities to the rich. However, cross-border shopping is often...

Variation in political slant across media outlets, and demand for such slant, has been studied extensively. We conduct a novel within-outlet (and within-topic) analysis of the demand for "congenially" slanted news. We study so-called horse race news from six major online outlets for the 2012 and...

Behavioral economics presents a "paternalistic" rationale for intervention by a benevolent government. This paper studies the desirability of various forms of collective action when government decisions are determined via the political process in response to votes by time inconsistent voters. We...

We study a vote buying setup where a committee votes on a proposal important to the vote buyer. We characterize the cheapest combination of bribes that guarantees the proposal's passing in different voting environments. We find that for both simultaneous and sequential votes, the vote buyer...

There is no doubt that protectionism costs. But it is less clear exactly how much it costs and who pays. And while protectionism results in a deadweight loss — there are more losers than winners — some individuals and groups gain from protectionism. And it is those who stand to gain who have...

This paper argues that political polarization plays a key role in shaping the economic expectations and consumption behavior of households. Using a combination of survey and consumption data of U.S. households, we document five facts. First, household beliefs are well-described by a single...