Do the contests with the largest prizes attract the most able contestants? To what extent do contestants avoid competition? In this paper, we show, theoretically and empirically, that the distribution of abilities plays a crucial role in determining contest choice. Sorting exists only when the...

We offer complete characterizations of the equilibrium outcomes of two prominent agenda voting institutions that are widely used in the democratic world: the amendment, also known as the Anglo-American procedure, and the successive, or equivalently the Euro-Latin procedure. Our axiomatic...

This essay reviews some findings in cognition sciences and examines their consequences for the analysis of institutions. It starts by exploring how humans’ specialization in producing knowledge ensures our success in dominating the environment but also changes fast our environment. So fast...

We estimate the effect of state judiciary presence on rent extraction in Brazilian local governments. We measure rents as irregularities related to waste or corruption uncovered by auditors. Our unique dataset at the level of individual inspections allows us to separately examine extensive and...

During the Greek debt crisis after 2010, the German government insisted on harsh austerity measures. This led to a rapid cooling of relations between the Greek and German governments. We compile a new index of public acrimony between Germany and Greece based on newspaper reports and internet...

We analyze a model of conflict with endogenous choice of effort, where subsets of the contenders may force the resolution to be sequential: First the alliance fights it out with the rest and – in case they win – later they fight it out among themselves. For three-player games, we find that...

This note tries to clarify some remaining issues in the debate on the effect of income shocks on civil conflict. Section 1 discusses the discrepant findings on the effect of rainfall shocks on civil conflict in Miguel and Satyanath (2010, 2011) and Ciccone (2011). Section 2 develops an...

In this paper we analyze sanctioning policies in international law. We develop a model of international military conflict where the conflicting countries can be a target of international sanctions. These sanctions constitute an equilibrium outcome of an international political market for...

This paper analyzes the relationship between ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and conflict. In recent years many authors have found empirical evidence that ethnic fractionalization has a negative effect on growth. One mechanism that can explain this nexus is the effect of ethnic...

This paper analyzes the different equilibria in rural-urban migrations and political redistribution that result from the interaction between increasing political returns, the distribution of land, and credit market imperfections. Governments that put a special weight on the welfare of urban...