We investigate the consequences of a peaceful shift of power from one social group to another. Theoretically, we show that an individual’s decision to stay put or migrate depends on the difference between the political preferences of groups and the change in tax. Empirically, we use the case...

Scholars of environmental politics emphasize the importance of path dependence for sustainable energy transitions, or the extensive deployment of clean energy in a society. However, they frequently overlook the strategic nature of energy policy. We develop a formal model of the political economy...

Climate change policy is generally modeled as a global collective action problem structured by free-riding concerns. Drawing on quantitative data, archival work, and elite interviews, we review empirical support for this model, and find that the evidence for its claims are weak relative to the...

Central bank independence (CBI) solves the time inconsistency problem faced by policymakers with respect to monetary policy. However, it does not solve their underlying incentives to manipulate the economy for political gains. Unable to use monetary policy, and often limited in their ability to...

Despite a recent surge in the academic literature on central bank independence (CBI), little is known about its drivers in authoritarian states. Our theoretical argument starts from the simple idea that no country is an island. Whereas autocratic regimes possessing abundant resource wealth have...