In this paper we study the determinants of people's attitudes toward income inequality and their consequences for redistributive policies. In the light of a recent literature in social choice theory, we argue that an individual's attitudes toward inequality depend upon the extent of autonomy...

"What is freedom? Canwemeasure it? Does it affect policy? This book develops an original measure of freedom called autonomy freedom, consistent with J. S. Mill's view of autonomy, and applies it to issues in policy and political design. The work pursues three aims. First, it extends classical...

This presidential address assesses the crisis of the Downsian model of political competition in light of the mounting evidence on policy divergence and evaluates the possibility that the new theories of politicians’ quality and political selection provide an alternative theoretical...

We study the decisions of a politician who maximizes his probability of being re-elected, which depends on the enactment of legislative instruments defined ‘scandalous’ because of their highly redistributive content. The agents are a politician and the voters; the legislative instruments...