We evaluate the effect of a politician’s age on political governance, reelection rates,and policies using data on Italian local governments. Our results suggest that younger politicians are more likely to behave strategically in response to election incentives: they increase spending and...

This paper uses data from U.S. states to investigate whether electoral accountability affects economic policy choices. We set up a model in which the possibility of being re-elected may curtail opportunistic behavior by incumbent governors. We find that facing a binding term limit affects...

In this paper we explore to what extent secondary policy issues are influenced by electoral incentives. We develop a political agency model in which a politician decides on both a frontline policy issue, such as the level of public spending, and a secondary policy issue, such as environmental...

Building on an idea in Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003), this article investigates the application of synthetic control methods to comparative case studies. We discuss the advantages of these methods and apply them to study the effects of Proposition 99, a large-scale tobacco control program that...

This paper provides a systematic analysis of identification in linear social interactions models. This is both a theoretical and an econometric exercise as the analysis is linked to a rigorously delineated model of interdependent decisions. We develop an incomplete information game that...

We propose a new inverse probability weighting (IPW) estimator for moment condition models with missing data. Our estimator is easy to implement and compares favorably with existing IPW estimators, including augmented inverse probability weighting (AIPW) estimators, in terms of efficiency,...

Is public sector infrastructure a key determinant of productivity? Traditional, project-based analyses of benefits and costs typically do not find large rates of return. Proponents of infrastructure spending instead point to regression-based analyses of the links between private productivity and...

Previous empirical studies have typically uncovered little evidence that police reduce crime. One problem with those studies is a failure to adequately deal with the simultaneity between police and crime: while police may or may not reduce crime, there is little doubt that expenditures on police...

Affluent towns often deliver high-quality public services to their residents. I estimate the willingness to pay to live in a high-income suburb, above and beyond the demand of wealthy neighbors, by measuring changes in housing prices across city-suburban borders as the income disparity between...

This paper takes a fresh look at the trade-off between centralized and decentralized provision of local public goods. The point of departure is to model a centralized system as one in which public spending is financed by general taxation, but districts can receive different levels of local...