When are high earnings considered a legitimate target for redistribution, and when not? We design a real-effort laboratory experiment in which we manipulate the assignment of payrates (societal ‘reward rules') that translate performance on a real-effort counting task into pre-tax earnings. We...

Policymakers generally have powerful incentives to attract votes by strategically manipulating public policies, for instance by increasing public spending during election periods or by implementing ideologically valued policies for their electoral base. At first sight, public theaters and...

Utilizing a simplified version of the Meltzer-Richard redistribution mechanism we designed a laboratory experiment to test whether it matters if voters were asked to decide on a tax rate or minimum income, leaving the redistribution mechanism itself unchanged. Framing the vote about...

Introduction -- The unexpected peacefulness of transitions -- Political quiescence despite conditions for conflict -- Preventing protests: divide and pacify as political strategy -- The great abnormal pensioner booms: strategic social policies in practice -- Peaceful pathways: the political...

This article thematically reviews two leading schools of economic thought on efficiency in democracy. The author pits collective action and public goods-based approaches in the tradition of Mancur Olson (1965, 2000) against Chicago-influenced theses by Posner, Stigler, Breton, Wittman and...