Substantial policy changes, like market-oriented reforms by populist parties and steps towards peace by 'hawks,' are sometimes implemented by 'unlikely' parties. To account for such episodes, this paper develops a framework in which incumbent politicians have better information about the state...

In the presence of different abilities, and therefore different bequests, some individuals are bequest constrained even in a neo-Ricardian world. Such individuals vote for taxes on future generations, through the issuance of bonds, thereby increasing their current consumption. This produces some...

The importance of seigniorage relative to other sources of government revenue differs markedly across countries. This paper tries to explain this regularity by studying a political model of tax reform. The model implies that countries with a more unstable and polarized political system will have...