Polities differ in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry out promised policy actions if they take power. Commitment problems may arise due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex...

This paper shows how unilateral liberalization in one country can increase the voting support for reciprocal reduction in trade barriers in a partner country. When trade policies are determined simultaneously in the two countries, we show the possibility of multiple political equilibria -...

This paper develops a new approach to detecting electoral fraud. Our context involves repeaters, individuals voting in multiple states in the U.S. during 19th Century Congressional Elections. Given high travel times, and the associated difficulties of voting in multiple states on the same day,...