In most elections, voters care about several issues, but candidates may have to choose only a few to build their campaign on. The information that voters will get about the politician depends on this choice, and it is therefore a strategic one. In this paper, I study a model of elections where...

We develop a dynamic game to explore the interaction between regulation and private policies, such as self-regulation by firms and activism. Without a public regulator, the possibility of self-regulation is bad for the firm, but good for activists who are willing to maintain a costly boycott to...

In elections that take place in a less-than-perfect democracy, incumbency advantages are different from those in mature democracies. The incumbent can prevent credible challengers from running, organize vote fraud, or even physically eliminate his main opponents. At the same time, formally...

We develop a dynamic game to explore the interaction between regulation and private policies, such as self-regulation by firms and activism. Without a public regulator, the possibility of self-regulation is bad for the firm, but good for activists who are willing to maintain a costly boycott to...

It is often argued that additional checks and balances provide economic agents with better protection from expropriation of their wealth or productive capital. We demonstrate that in a dynamic political economy model this intuition may be flawed. Surprisingly, increasing the number of veto...

Social norms are typically thought to be persistent and long-lasting, sometimes surviving through growth, recessions, and regime changes. In some cases, however, they can quickly change. This paper examines the unraveling of social norms in communication when new information becomes available,...

Concerns about social image may negatively affect schooling behavior. We identify two potentially important peer cultures: one that stigmatizes effort (thus, where it is "smart to be cool") and one that rewards ability (where it is "cool to be smart"). We build a model showing that either may...

Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of a democratic system, but elections are common in other regimes as well. Such an election might be a pure farce, with the incumbents getting close to 100% of the vote. In other instances, incumbents allow opposition candidates to be on the ballot and...

In elections that take place in a less-than-perfect democracy, incumbency advantages are different from those in mature democracies. The incumbent can prevent credible challengers from running, organize vote fraud, or even physically eliminate his main opponents. At the same time, formally...