There is a growing literature on the effect of electoral competition and democratic participation on issues such as corruption and government policy. The theoretical and empirical literature suggests that electoral competition has a beneficial impact on policies. This paper studies the effects...

Why would a political elite voluntarily dilute its political power by extending the voting franchise? This paper develops a dynamic recursive framework for studying voter enfranchisement. We specify a class of dynamic games in which political rights evolve over time. Each period, private...

We offer a simple general equilibrium model to analyze how economy-wide forces (i.e. shocks to terms of trade, technology and endowments) will affect the intensity of social conflict over the distribution of resources. Examples of conflict activities range from crime to civil war. We show that...

In this paper we model the interaction between parties and candidates to highlight the mechanisms by which parties selecting candidates may discipline legislators. Parties are long-lived institutions providing incentives to short-lived candidates. Citizens have preferences over a multimentional...

Using data from the Mid-Atlantic surf clam and ocean quahog fishery, we find that firms with a preference for extreme, rather than moderate, policies are much more likely to participate in public meetings where regulation is determined. We also find that participation rates are higher for...

This paper examines causes of the persistence of corruption among elected politicians in democracies. We study a theoretical model of competition between two candidates who differ both in ability and popularity in a probabilistic voting setup. Each candidate proposes a tax rate and a public good...

Ascending price clock auctions with drop-out information typically yield outcomes closer to equilibrium predictions than do comparable sealed-bid auctions. However clock auctions require congregating all bidders for a fixed time interval, which has limited field applicability and introduces...

We consider a multi-awards generalization of King Solomon's problem: $k$ identical and indivisible awards should be distributed among $n$ agents, $k<n$, with the top $k$ valuation agents receiving the awards. Agents have complete information about each others' valuations. Glazer and Ma (1989) analyzed the single-prize (i.e., $k=1$) version of this problem. We show that in the `more than two agents' problem the mechanism of Glazer and Ma admits inefficient equilibria and thus fails to solve Solomon's problem. So, first we modify their mechanism to rule out inefficient equilibria and implement efficient prize allocation in subgame perfect equilibrium when there are at least three agents. Then it is shown that a simple repeated application of our modified mechanism will distribute $k\;(>1)$ prizes efficiently in subgame perfect equilibria without any monetary transfers in equilibrium. Finally, in the multi-awards case we relax the...</n$,>

This paper formulates a model of dynamic, endogenous reform of political institutions. Specifically, a class of dynamic political games (DPGs) is introduced in which institutional choice is both recursive and instrumental. It is recursive because future political institutions are decided under...

We model electoral competition between two parties in a winner take all election. Parties choose strategically first their platforms and then their campain spending under aggregate uncertainty about voters' preferences. In the unique Nash equilibrium larger elections are characterized by a...