Free media may not favor political accountability when other democratic institutions are weak, and may even bring undesirable unintended consequences. We propose a simple model in which candidates running for office may engage in coercion to obtain votes. A media scandal exposing these...

Access to more information by a group of voters may represent more knowledge about the political system and incentivize people to make better choices. In this paper I argue that mass media have an impact over voters' knowledge, reflected on one of the main forms of political participation that...

Spanish Abstract: ¿Pueden los medios determinar el éxito o fracaso de las reformas institucionales? Estudiamos la adopción del voto secreto en los Estados Unidos y el papel de los medios de comunicación en este paso crucial para mejorar la democracia. Utilizando una estrategia de...

This paper examines the role of mass media in countering special interest group influence. I use the concentration of campaign contributions from Political Action Committees to proxy special interests’ capture US Senate candidates from 1980 to 2002, and compare the reaction of voters to...

The increasing national diversity of co-workers has no consensus on its impact on performance. Using a team’s predominant nationality as proxy for national diversity and national identity, there is robust evidence that it affects performance. Detailed worker-level data from a highly globalized...