We present simple and direct arguments to characterize strongly group strategy-proof social choice functions whose range is of cardinality two. The underlying society is of arbitrary cardinality, and agents can be indifferent among alternatives.

A mechanism guarantees a certain welfare level to its agents, if each of them can secure that level against unanimously adversarial others. How high can such a guarantee be, and what type of mechanism achieves it? In the n-person probabilistic voting/bargaining model with p deterministic...

We analyze the optimal delegation problem between a principal and an agent, assuming that the latter has state-independent preferences. Among all incentive- compatible direct mechanisms, veto mechanisms—in which the principal commits to mixing between the status quo option and another...

We show that any monotonic, anonymous, unanimous and tops-only rule defined on a MD-Connected domain must be a generalized median voter rule. Moreover, we also show that a generalized median voter rule is monotonic if and only if the domain is a Minimum Reversals domain. These two results are...

Germany's 'Agenda 2010' labour and welfare reforms contradict conventional wisdom that its political economy with many veto players disallows paradigmatic structural change. To address this puzzle, this paper presents an augmented version of the Veto Player Model. Introducing veto clusters to...

We propose a five-player common-pool resource (CPR) game with endogenous coalition formation. We show that the level of extraction from the CPR depends on the size of each coalition that is formed and on the final coalition structure. These predictions are tested in a laboratory experiment. We...

International organizations (IOs) often drive policy change in member countries. Given IOs’ limited political leverage over a member country, previous research argues that IOs rely on a combination of hard pressures (i.e., conditionality) and soft pressures (i.e., socialization) to attain...

This paper studies whether including a broad group of stakeholders in policy advisory commissions helps build consensus. It may seem that including interested parties with conflicting preferences would increase conflict, but advisory commissions reach unanimity with a surprisingly high...

In a veto game, we investigate the effects of "buyout" which allows non-veto players strategically form an intermediate coalition. We report two main experimental findings in this paper. First, the frequency of intermediate coalition formation is much lower than predicted by theory, regardless...

International organizations (IOs) often drive policy change in member countries. Given IOs' limited political leverage over a member country, previous research argues that IOs rely on a combination of hard pressures (i.e., conditionality) and soft pressures (i.e., socialization) to attain their...

By vetoing one questions mutually efficient agreements. On the other hand the threat of vetoing may prevent exploitation. Based on a generalization of ultimatum bargaining (Suleiman, 1996) we first elicit the responders; certainty equivalents for three different degrees of veto power. Afterwards...

The institutions of federal fiscal-policy making seem incapable of confronting the central domestic issues of the day. This paper presents a model of congressional decision-making in which legislators' incentives are contrary to fiscal efficiency. In such an environment, a "strong" president may...

As presidents make ever more expansive claims of executive power, Congress's ability and willingness to counter the executive is limited. That makes all the more significant instances when Congress does overcome structural and political challenges to pass legislation to rein in the President....

The Delaware Chancery Court famously declared that the “shareholder franchise is the ideological underpinning upon which the legitimacy of directorial power rests." However, the case against shareholder voting reform rests on an apparent trump card in the debate — the well-recognized problem...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine a curvilinear effect of legislative constraints on foreign debt. Design/methodology/approach - A cross-sectional, time-series data analysis of 68 developing countries during the period from 1981 to 1999 was performed. Findings - Foreign borrowing...

We study optimal policy experimentation by a committee. We consider a dynamic bargaining game in which committee members choose either a risky reform or a safe alternative each period. When no redistribution is allowed the unique equilibrium outcome is generically inefficient. When...

The vast majority of federations lack exit clauses. Existing theoretical explanations of this stylized fact focus on issues of credible commitment, signaling, and the risk of strategic exploitation. However, such accounts are unable to explain the adoption by the European Union (EU) of Article...

We study conditions under which optimal policy experimentation can be implemented by a committee. We consider a dynamic bargaining game in which committee members choose to implement either a risky reform or a safe alternative with known returns each period. We find that when no redistribution...

We study optimal policy experimentation by a committee. We consider a dynamic bargaining game in which committee members choose either a risky reform or a safe alternative each period. When no redistribution is allowed the unique equilibrium outcome is generically inefficient. When...

When a group of voters selects a committee out of a set of candidates, it is common and often desirable to endow these voters with some veto power. I present impossibility results showing that even limited veto power makes many mechanisms of interest manipulable. This applies in particular (i)...

I consider a class of two-party, zero sum sequential selection games where players compete over the composition of a panel comprising one or more seats. The players have a limited number of vetoes which can be used to reject panelists, with replacements being selected at random from a pool. One...

The dissertation includes four studies broadly connected to the causes and consequences of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8 from a political economy perspective. Following the intro-duction, Chapter 2 analyzes the political roots of massive foreign reserves accumulation, which has...

This paper explores the politics of the Fouchet Plan, the unsuccessful initiative by French President Charles de Gaulle in 1961-62 to create a new 'union of states' for foreign-policy and defence cooperation among the six founding members of the European Community. The paper traces the origins...

The present paper explores the correlation between political systems, and fiscal policies, very much in the footsteps of the seminal work by Roubini and Sachs (1989), thus focusing on the relative dispersion or concentration of political power as the main political characteristic. The principal...

The dissertation includes four studies broadly connected to the causes and consequences of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8 from a political economy perspective. Following the intro-duction, Chapter 2 analyzes the political roots of massive foreign reserves accumulation, which has...