We present a theoretical model of a parliamentary democracy, where party structures, government coalitions and fiscal policies are endogenously determined. The model predicts that, relative to proportional elections, majoritarian elections reduce government spending because they reduce party...

How does the partisan composition of an electorate impact the policies adopted by an elected representative? We take advantage of variation in the partisan composition of Congressional districts stemming from Census-initiated redistricting in the 1990's, 2000's, and 2010's. Using this variation,...

We develop a model to understand the incidence of presidential and parliamentary institutions. Our analysis is predicated on two ideas: first, that minorities are relatively powerful in a parliamentary system compared to a presidential system, and second, that presidents have more power with...

Recent findings have revived interest in the link between real wage rigidity and employment fluctuations, in the context of frictional labor markets. The standard search and matching model fails to generate substantial labor market fluctuations if wages are set by Nash bargaining, while it can...

Initial inequality in endowments and opportunities, together with low average levels of endowments, can create constituencies in a society that combine to paralyze reforms, even though the status quo hurts them collectively. Each constituency prefers reforms that expand its opportunities, but in...

Structurally estimating the Grossman and Helpman (1994) model using coverage ratios that include non-tariff barriers leads to biased parameter estimates. We develop a "protection for sale" theoretical framework consistent with the data, by explicitly allowing for non-tariff barriers. Introducing...

Debate about the Double Dividend Hypothesis has focused on whether an environmental policy raises revenue that can be used to cut other distorting taxes. In this paper, we show that this focus is misplaced. We derive welfare results for alternative policies in a series of analytical general...