A long-standing question in public economics is why governments do not rely on lump-sum taxes to satisfy revenue requirements. The previous literature has found that lump-sum taxation may result in ruinous political conflict, but has not disentangled the effects of restrictions on the efficiency...

Combining rent-seeking and menu auction models allows the study of efficiency in a political economy where lobbying creates rents that politicians expend resources to obtain. Policy choices, lobbying, and rent-seeking are determined endogenously. When all interests lobby, equilibrium local...

Experiments on intertemporal choice have found "preference reversals" and related anomalies. These robust findings have been considered a major source of support for the quasi-hyperbolic discounting model of consumption preference. Our analysis clarifies the relationship between the experimental...

Studies of federalism often assume that a central government's policy choices are exogenously restricted to be uniform across political subdivisions. Drawing from the literature on contracts and organization, this paper provides a justification for the much-criticized assumption. Though...

When the government becomes involved in an issue, interested parties expend resources to influence the policy outcome. Using a common agency model of policymaking, this paper studies the conditions under which conflict over policy implies that it is optimal for a constitution to restrict the...