This paper proposes an argument that explains incumbency advantage without recurring to the collective irresponsibility of legislatures. For that purpose, we exploit the informational value of incumbency: incumbency confers voters information about governing politicians not available from...

We present a model of cooperative production in which rational agents might carry out sabotage activities that decrease output. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a Nash equilibrium without sabotage. It is shown that the absence of sabotage in equilibrium depends...

The financing of higher education through public spending imposes a transfer of resources from taxpayers to university students and their parents. We provide an explanation for this phenomenon. Those who attend institutions of higher education will earn more income in the future and will pay...

This paper studies collective choice rules whose outcomes consist of a collection of simultaneous decisions, each one of which is the only concern of some group of individuals in society. The need for such rules arises in different contexts, including the establishment of jurisdictions, the...

In this paper we present a model of war between two rational and completely informed players. We show that in the absence of binding agreements war can be avoided in many cases by one player transferring money to the other player. In most cases, the "rich" country transfers part of her money to...