We present a model of policy development in which competing factions have different ideologies, yet agree on certain common objectives. Policy developers can appeal to a decision maker by making productive investments to improve the quality of their proposals. These investments are specific to a...

I study a dynamic model of strategic reform decisions that potentially affect the stochastic evolution of a publicly observed economic variable. Policy makers maximize their evaluation by a boundedly rational public. Specifically, the public follows a rule that attributes recent changes to the...

We analyze the existence of policy reversal, the phenomenon sometimes observed that a certain policy (say extreme left-wing) is implemented by the "unlikely" (right-wing) party. We formulate a Downsian signaling model where the incumbent government, through its choice of policy, reveals...

The Grossman-Helpman "Protection for Sale" model, concerning the political economy of trade protection, yields clear predictions for the cross-sectional structure of import barriers. Our objective is to check whether the predictions of the Grossman-Helpman model are consistent with the data and,...

We construct a model to study the implications of changes in political institutions for economic institutions. A change in political institutions alters the distribution of de jure political power, but creates incentives for investments in de facto political power to partially or even fully...

Using state-by-state voting data for U.S. presidential elections, the authors observe that voter turnout is a positive function of predicted closeness. To explain the strategic component of political participation, they develop a follow-the-leader model. Political leaders expend effort according...

Alesina and Tabellini (2007) investigate the normative criteria for allocating policy tasks to bureaucrats versus politicians. While they establish criteria with respect to a number of parameters, they do not give a criterion with respect to the degree of imperfect monitoring. We establish an...