The Soviet ruling elite, the nomenklatura, used both cooption and political repression to encourage loyalty to the communist regime. Loyalty was critical both in defusing internal opposition to the rule of the nomenklatura and in either deterring or defeating foreign enemies of the Soviet Union....

We develop a positive theory of kleptocracy, in which the incumbent ruler's concern about his survival probability can induce him to pursue relatively benevolent policies. But, this effect can lower the equilibrium tax rate only until the time-consistency requirement becomes a binding constraint...

This paper develops a model for studying colonial investment in which the metropolitan government restricts the amount of investment in the colony in order to maximize the net profits earned in the colony. The model explicitly includes the threat of subversive activity by the indigenous colonial...

In many countries, especially poor countries, a heavy burden of taxes, fees, bureaucratic hassles, and bribes drives many producers into an informal sector. This paper shows that we can attribute the existence of a large informal sector to the fact that, because productive endowments contain...