A 2006 survey of 28,000 individuals in 28 post-communist countries reveals overwhelming support for revising privatization, but most respondents prefer to leave firms in private hands. We examine who wants to revise privatization and why. Respondents with poor human capital and few assets...

The mechanisms underlying the relation between development and security are difficult to define and poorly understood. This has not hindered various donor countries, NGOs, or international organizations from designing and implementing Security Sector Reform (SSR) initiatives with the presumption...

A behavioral political economy framework is built on the basis of prospect theory to explain the induced and imposed institutional changes during China's market reform, giving special attention to the integrated effects of economic and political institutions. According to prospect theory, how...

The determinants of government responsiveness to its citizens is a key issue in political economy. Here we develop a model based on the solution of political agency problems. Having a more informed and politically active electorate strengthens incentives for governments to be responsive. This...

One of the key goals of political economy is to understand how institutional arrangements shape policy outcomes. This paper studies a comparatively neglected aspect of this - the forces that shape heterogeneous performance of autocracies. The paper develops a simple theoretical model of...

We analyse politically motivated privatization design in a bipartisan environment where politicians lack commitment power. Suppose the median class voters a priori favour redistributive policies. If the privatization programme succeeds in allocating enough shares to these citizens, they become...