We develop a model in which states may choose to form coalitions to capture efficiency gains from policy coordination. Joining a coalition entails setting the policy variable to maximize the coalition's aggregate payoff at a Nash equilib- rium against non-members, and to commit to a transfer...

Costless pre-play communication has been found to effectively facilitate coordination and enhance efficiency by increasing individual payoffs in games with Pareto-ranked equilibria. We report an experiment in which two groups compete in a weakest-link contest by expending costly efforts....

I first show that if there are more than two potential candidates in the Hotelling- Downs model of the simultaneous choice of positions by politicians then an equilibrium fails to exist in a wide range of situations. Subsequently I study a temporal model in which candidates are free to act...

This paper reports an experiment that examines whether groups can make better decisions than individuals in contests. Our experiment replicates previous findings that individual players significantly overbid relative to theoretical predictions, incurring substantial losses. There is high...

This paper examines whether and how communication can help groups solve coordination and free-rider problems when they compete with another group for a public-good prize. We find that when group members make an anonymous individual decision on whether or not to contribute to the group success,...

This experimental study explores how communication influences efficiency, trust and trustworthiness in a small group when one member is left out of communication. To study this problem, we introduce a novel three-player trust game where player 1 can send any portion of his endowment to player 2....

This article argues that welfare state restructuring, which is highly unpopular among voters, is politically feasible if government and opposition parties collude informally with each other. Contrary to key arguments made in the literature, restructuring does not require the formation of a...

We develop a model of electoral competition in which citizens choose whether or not to run as candidates; a winner implements her favorite policy. The equilibrium number of candidates depends negatively on the cost of run ning and positively on the benets of winning. For some parameter values...

Using data from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey, the current study expands on previous research on the healthy immigrant effect (HIE) in adult populations by considering the effects of both immigrant and visible minority status on health for males and females in mid- (45- 64) and later...

In this paper, we use data from the confidential master files of the Canadian Census over the years 1991-2006 to study the geographic mobility of immigrant and non-immigrant physicians who are already resident in Canada. We consider both inter- and intra- provincial migration, with a particular...