Voters value candidate characteristics such as honesty and competence. These are known as valence issues. In this paper, we consider the situation where candidates may have more than one valence characteristic of importance to the voters. At the same time we introduce a new concept "the...

This paper provides a general theory explaining the geographic and population size and wealth of nations. Successful countries create conditions for high productivity in the economic sphere by enforcing property rights and providing social overhead capital and at the same time minimize political...

We construct game theoretic foundations for bargaining in the shadow of a trial. Plaintiff and defendant both have noisy signals of a common-value trial judgment and make simultaneous offers to settle. If the offers cross, they settle on the average offer; otherwise, both litigants incur an...

The standard evolutionary explanation for depression is that being emotionally depressed is adaptive. We argue that being depressed is not adaptive (indeed, quite the opposite), but that the threat of depression for bad outcomes and the promise of pleasure for good outcomes are adaptive because...