This paper is the first attempt to study the relationship between public auditor expertise and fiscal performance. I find that states requiring the auditor to hold a professional degree feature significantly higher credit ratings and lower expenditures and debt.

The paper studies the design of popular initiatives in unions of states. We analyze the effect of state-specific threshold requirements on the incentives of a rational campaign organizer who decides which constituencies to target. If the heterogeneity of preferences in a population increases...

This paper finds evidence that more democratic political institutions increase trust. Second generation immigrants with ancestries from 115 countries are studied within 30 European countries. Comparing individuals born and residing in the same country, those whose father was born in a more...

The Condorcet rule on the domain of profiles at which there exists a unique Condorcet winner is the unique rule satisfying anonymity, neutrality, and strategy-proofness.

The restart effect occurs in linear voluntary contribution mechanism (VCM) experiments when there is an upward pulse in contributions to the group account following a stoppage and then restarting of the VCM experiment. Although the restart effect is a well-known empirical regularity little...

Anonymity and neutrality conflict if the number of individuals is even and a single alternative is selected. Limited neutrality, anonymity, and monotonicity imply majority rule when the agenda is a two-element set.

We consider an axiomatic characterization of the plurality rule, which selects the alternative(s) most preferred by the largest number of individuals. We strengthen the characterization result of Yeh [Yeh, C.-H., 2008. An efficiency characterization of plurality rule in collective choice...

We propose a simple non-cooperative game model in which two fragmented teams compete to increase their performance. The theoretical framework is based on the theory of conflict. We show that, depending on the value of a parameter in the model, the power of the competing teams may be expressed as...

It is demonstrated that a preference profile will generate a transitive majority rule relation if and only if it is not balanced, a single-profile counterpart to a violation of value restriction.

This paper explains the provision of private rent to powerful members in an organization as an outcome of a contest for power that raises the total contributions to the organization. A necessary condition for a socially efficient contest scheme with reimbursements is characterized.