We study budget formation in a model featuring separation of powers. In our model,the legislature designs a budget bill that can include a cap on total spending and ear-marked allocations to designated public projects. Each project provides random benefits to one of many interest groups. The...

Urban economists understand housing prices with a spatial equilibrium approach that assumes people must be indifferent across locations. Since the spatial no arbitrage condition is inherently imprecise, other economists have turned to different no arbitrage conditions, such as the prediction...

When members of deliberating groups speak with one another, their predeliberation tendencies often become exacerbated as their views become more extreme. The resulting phenomenon - group polarization - has been observed in many settings, and it bears on the actions of juries, administrative...

Economists are quick to assume opportunistic behavior in almost every walk of life other than our own. Our empirical methods are based on assumptions of human behavior that would not pass muster in any of our models. The solution to this problem is not to expect a mass renunciation of data...