We develop a model in which profits of media firms depend on their audience ratings, and maximizing profits may involve catering to a partisan audience by suppressing information that the partisan audience does not like hearing. While voters are rational, understand the nature of the news...

Many observers argue that political polarization, particularly on social and cultural issues, has increased in the United States. How does this influence the political competition on economic issues? We analyze this question using a framework in which two officemotivated candidates differ in...

One of the most widely discussed phenomena in American politics today is the perceived increasing partisan divide that splits the U.S. electorate. A contested question is whether this diagnosis is actually true and, if so, what the underlying cause might be. We propose a new method that...

We consider a setting in which several groups of individuals with common interests (``clubs") compete with each other for recognition by other individuals. Depending on the context, recognition may be expressed by these other individuals joining a club, or choosing one club to admire. Clubs...

This paper analyses a model in which two groups repeatedly compete with each other for a prize in every time period. We assume that there is a status quo bias: if there is a fight today, yesterday's winner is in a stronger position than the other group. Hence, a change of the status quo has...