Do donor-funded politicians benefit their donors disproportionately? If so, how? This paper examines the impact of electing donor-funded politicians using a novel dataset that uniquely links campaign donors with recipients of public contracts during mayors' incumbency period in Colombia. Using a...

The recent literature on the determinants of populism has highlighted the role of long-term trends of progressive isolation and prolonged economic stagnation in engendering discontent and, in turn, demand for political change. We investigate, instead, the potential of unanticipated local shocks...

We explore the effect of oil import price shocks on political outcomes using a worldwide dataset on elections of chief executives. Oil import price shocks cause a reduction in the odds of reelection of incumbents, an increase in media chatter about fuel prices, and an increase in non-violent...

Free media may not favor political accountability when other democratic institutions are weak, and may even bring undesirable unintended consequences. We propose a simple model in which candidates running for office may engage in coercion to obtain votes. A media scandal exposing these...

The latest World Press Trends report shows that business sentiment in the industry has taken a downturn, in a context where multiple challenges face news publishers around the world. Yet there are causes for optimism, as revenue diversification progresses and publishers double down on new...