Institutions are an important means for fostering prosocial behaviors, but in many contexts their scope is limited and they govern only a subset of all socially desirable acts. We study experimentally how the presence and nature of an institution that enforces prosocial behavior in one domain...

We study the political determination of the level of social long-term care insurance when voters also choose private insurance and saving amounts. Agents differ in income, probability of becoming dependent and of receiving family help. Social insurance redistributes across income and risk...

I formulate a political-economy model of a fiscal union where the threat of secession imposes a limit on fiscal redistribution between regions. I argue that the trade-off between implementing the region's preferred fiscal policy and benefiting from inter-regional risk sharing depends on the...

Principal-agent problems can arise when preferences of voters are not aligned with preferences of political representatives. Often the consequence of the political principal-agent problem is political catering to special interests. In this paper I provide examples of principal-agent problems...

The number of preferential trade agreements has greatly increased over the past two decades, yet most existing bilateral arrangements take the form of free trade areas, and less than ten percent can be considered to be fully fledged customs unions. This paper develops a political economy model...

We propose the concept of level r consensus as a useful property of a preference profile which considerably enhances the stability of social choice. This concept involves a weakening of unanimity, the most extreme form of consensus. It is shown that if a preference profile exhibits level r...

This paper analyzes the effects of trade liberalisation on the political support for policies that redistribute income between workers in different sectors. We allow for worker heterogeneity and imperfect mobility of workers across sectors, giving rise to a trade-off between redistribution and...

We study voting over higher education finance in an economy with two regions and two separated labor markets. Households differ in their financial endowment and their children’s ability. Non-students are immobile. Students decide where to study; they return home after graduation with exogenous...

This paper presents concepts from economic analysis that shed light on the formation and breakup of sovereign states. First, we discuss the key trade-off between economies of scale in the provision of public goods and political costs from heterogeneity of preferences. Second, we present four...