This paper provides an empirical investigation of electoral participation and communicative voting in 14 European countries. We estimate a multi-level voting process where individuals face a participation decision (whether to vote or abstain) and a voting decision (whether to vote strategically...

This paper provides a model of indirect lobbying where special interest groups try to influence policy outcomes by targeting voters. Specifically, competing lobbies engage in influence activities to affect the information that a (possibly biased) media outlet collects on the public value of...

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on commercial media bias (i.e., advertisers influence over media accuracy) and then introduces a simple model to summarize the main elements of the theoretical literature. The analysis provides three main policy insights for media regulators: (i) Media...

This paper provides a model of the market for news where profit-maximizing media outlets choose their editors from a population of rational citizens. The analysis identifies a novel mechanism of media bias: the bias in a media outlet's news reports is the result of the slanted endogenous...

This paper uses an original dataset covering the presence of local news in medium-large Italian cities in the period 1993–2010 to evaluate the effects of newspaper entry and exit on electoral participation, political selection, and government efficiency. Exploiting discrete changes in the...

This comprehensive and thought-provoking Handbook reviews public sector economics from pluralist perspectives that either complement or reach beyond mainstream views. The book takes a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, drawing on economic elements in the fields of philosophy, sociology,...

We investigate the causal impact of broadband Internet on political participation using data from Italy. We show that this impact varies across different forms of political engagement and over time. Initially, broadband had a negative effect on turnout in national elections, driven by increased...