We present an electoral theory on the public provision of local public goods to an imperfectly informed electorate. We show that electoral incentives lead to greater spending if the electorate is not well informed. A more informed electorate induces candidates to target funds only to specific...

A vote-buying mechanism is such that each agent buys a quantity of votes x to cast for an alternative of her choosing, at a cost c(x), and the outcome is determined by the total number of votes cast for each alternative. In the context of binary decisions, we prove that the choice rules that can...

We study the relation between the electorate's information about candidates' policy platforms during an election, and the subsequent provision of inefficient local public goods by the elected government. More information does not always lead to better outcomes. We show that the equilibrium...

Are decisions by political parties more or less accepted than direct-democratic decisions? The literature on parties as brand names or labels suggests that the existence of political parties lowers information and transaction costs of voters by providing ideological packages. Building on this...