This paper investigates the normative criteria that guide the allocation of a policy task to an elected politician versus an independent bureaucrat. The bureaucrat is preferable for technical tasks for which ability is more important than effort, or if there is great uncertainty about whether...

This paper analyzes a model in which a group of rational individuals votes over the composition and time profile of public spending. All voters agree that a balanced budget is ex ante optimal. However, if there is disagreement between current and future majorities, a balanced budget is not a...

We examine the effects of constituents, special interests, and ideology on congressional voting on two of the most significant pieces of legislation in US economic history. Representatives whose constituents experience a sharp increase in mortgage defaults are more likely to support the...

Do lobbyists provide issue-specific information to members of Congress? Or do they provide special interests access to politicians? We present evidence to assess the role of issue expertise versus connections in the US Federal lobbying process and illustrate how both are at work. In support of...

In a large-scale controlled trial in collaboration with the reelection campaign of an Italian incumbent mayor, we administered (randomized) messages about the candidate's valence or ideology. Informational treatments affected both actual votes in the precincts and individual vote declarations....

This paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a political agency model with career concerns and endogenous entry of candidates. The data refer to Brazil, where federal...

We investigate the effect of electoral rules and forms of government on fiscal policy outcomes in a large sample of democracies. We rely on different estimation methods to address prospective problems of statistical inference, due to nonrandom selection of these constitutional rules. The...