In elections that take place in a less-than-perfect democracy, incumbency advantages are different from those in mature democracies. The incumbent can prevent credible challengers from running, organize vote fraud, or even physically eliminate his main opponents. At the same time, formally...

We develop a dynamic game to explore the interaction between regulation and private policies, such as self-regulation by firms and activism. Without a public regulator, the possibility of self-regulation is bad for the firm, but good for activists who are willing to maintain a costly boycott to...

This paper develops a politico-economic model for use in studying the role of intra-elite conflict in the simultaneous determination of a country's political regime, trade policy and income-tax-based redistribution scheme. Three socioeconomic groups are involved: two elite groups and workers,...

Do societies choose inefficient policies and institutions, in contrast to what would be suggested by a reasoning extending the Coase Theorem to politics? Do societies choose inefficient policies and institutions because of differences in the beliefs and ideologies of their peoples or leaders? Or...

"We analyze the relationship between financial development and inter-industry resource allocation in the short- and long-run. We suggest that in the long-run, economies with high rates of financial development will devote relatively more resources to industries with a 'natural' reliance on...

During the booms that precede crises in emerging economies, policy makers often struggle to limit capital flows and their expansionary consequences. The main policy tool for this task is sterilization - essentially a swap of international reserves for public bonds. However, there is an extensive...

This paper investigates the design of an exchange rate policy for an economy where the domestic capital market is segmented from the global financial market, producers rely on credit to finance working capital needs, and the labor market is characterized by nominal contracts. We show that the...