Why many large non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are becoming multinational entities? What are the welfare implications of this integration of markets for development donations? To answer these questions, we build a simple two-country model with horizontally differentiated NGOs competing...

Mission-driven nonprofi?t organizations compete for donations through fundrais- ing activities. Such competition can lead to inefficient outcomes, if nonpro?fits impose ex- ternalities on each others? output. This paper studies the design of sustainable voluntary cooperation agreements, using a...

We present a simple political economy model that explains two major puzzles of government policies to combat HIV/AIDS epidemic: the lack of policy response in many countries where the epidemic is massive and the reversal of the downward trend in HIV prevalence in the countries that have adopted...

Is the decline in voter turnout an indicator of a worse health of a representative democracy? We build a simple probabilistic-voting model with endogenous turnout to address this question. We ?nd that a lower turnout caused by a higher cost of voting implies higher political rents. Contrarily, a...

Randomized controlled trials (RCT) have become a dominant empirical tool in applied economics. The internal validity of RCTs crucially depends on the (implicit) assumption that the procedure assigning subjects to treatment and control groups has no effect on behavior. We show theoretically that...

We study how the closeness of electoral race affect the number of invalid ballots under the traditional paper-ballot voting technology. Using a large dataset from the Italian parliamentary elections in 1994-2001, we find a strong positive correlation between the closeness of electoral race and...

We develop a theory of endogenous regimes transitions (with a focus on democratic consolidation), which emphasizes the role of political culture and of its interaction with political institutions. Political culture re?flects the extent of individual commitment across citizens to defend democracy...