There is now extensive empirical evidence showing that fund managers have relative performance objectives and adapt their investment strategy in the last part of the calendar year to balance their performance in the early part of the year. However, emphasis was put on returns in excess of some...

It is widely recognized that active media can play a role in enhancing political competition by informing voters. Collusion between government and media can, however, undermine this role. We extend the political accountability model to include the presence of media outlets and the possibility...

We provide evidence on the match between firms, managers and incentives using a new survey designed for this purpose. The survey contains information on a sample of executives' risk preferences and human capital, on the explicit and implicit incentives they face and on the firms they work for....

This paper investigates the role of campaign advertising and the opportunity of legal restrictions on it. An electoral race is modeled as a signalling game with three classes of players: a continuum of voters, two candidates, and one interest group. The group has non-verifiable insider...

We propose a distinction between active waste and passive waste as determinants of the cost of public services. Active waste entails utility for the public decision maker (as in the case of bribery) whereas passive waste does not (as in the case of inefficiency due to red tape). To assess the...

One of the main problems in pension policy is to develop an institutional framework that guarantees that public and private pensions promises are kept. This paper discusses how the governance of public and private pensions is key to making such promises credible. It argues that credibility...