An influential citizen wants to get away with tax evasion, a risky practice that can trigger audits resulting in sanctions. To reduce the chances of being audited, he can invest in the complexity of his evasion scheme —which we call "brains". The probability that an audit results in a sanction...

If a welfare transfers policy is programmatic (it is non-partisan, transparent and persisting), is it irrelevant for politicians' electoral fortunes? I show that the answer is no with a political agency model where politicians' competence is uncertain to all. In my set-up, an incumbent...

An economic elite wants to buy a public asset as cheaply as possible. Its ownership is decided by an incumbent politician who can be of high or low competence. The elite can make a buying offer for the asset and manipulate the information that is available to voters about the incumbent’s...