This paper studies politicians who have a present-bias for spending; they want to increase current spending and procrastinate spending cuts. We argue that legislators' bias is more severe in economies with low institutional quality. We show that disagreement in legislatures leads to policy...

In modern democracies, public policies are negotiated among elected policymakers. Yet, most macroeconomic models abstract from post-election negotiation. In order to understand the determinants of redistribution, this paper studies legislative bargaining in a growth model where individuals are...

Stricter laws require more incisive and costlier enforcement. Since enforcement activity depends both on available tax revenue and the honesty of officials, the optimal legal standard of a benevolent government is increasing in per-capita income and decreasing in officials’ corruption. In...

We analyze corporate fraud in a setting in which managers have superior information but are biased against liquidation, because of their private benefits from empire building. This may induce them to misreport information and even bribe auditors when liquidation would be value-increasing. To...

We build a simple model of trust as an equilibrium phenomenon, departing from standard "selfish" preferences in a minimal way. Agents who are on the receiving end of an other to transact can choose whether to cheat and take away the entire surplus, taking into account a "cost of cheating." The...