Geographic representation is an important consideration in candidate nominations, even under closed-list proportional representation (PR), and may even matter for distributive policy outcomes. However, since nominations are determined strategically, the causal effects of local representation are...

Pork barrel spending is typically attributed to the strategic behavior of political elites hoping to be electorally rewarded by voters residing in their districts. Such behavior is expected to depend on the incentives imposed by the electoral system. We estimate the causal effect of local...

We study distributive politics inside cities by analysing how local governments allocate investment projects to voters across neighbourhoods. In particular, we ask whether politicians use investment to target their own supporters. To this aim, we use detailed geo-located investment data from...

The paper investigates strategic campaigning in a model of redistributive politics in a society with many groups and two parties. Campaigns are informative, and parties can target campaigns to different groups. Voters are uncertain about whether parties fabor special groups. The parties will...

This paper utilizes a simple model of redistributive politics with voter abstention to analyze the impact of nonpartisan ‘get-out-the-vote’ efforts on policy outcomes. Although such efforts are often promoted on the grounds that they provide the social benefit of increasing participation in...

Many studies document systematic gender differences in a variety of important economic preferences, such as risk-taking, competition and pro-sociality. One potential implication of this literature is that increased female representation in decision-making bodies may significantly alter...

We introduce a framework of electoral competition in which voters have general preferences over candidates' characteristics and policies. Candidates' immutable characteristics (such as gender, race or previously committed policy positions) are exogenously differentiated, while candidates can...

Politicians may pander to public opinion and may renounce undertaking beneficial long-term projects. To alleviate this problem, we introduce a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to...