In the context of strikingly low literacy rates among Indian women and low caste population, the paper explores whether and how far the interests of the marginalized poor are undermined by the dominant elite consisting mainly of the landed and the capitalists. We distinguish the dominant elite...

This is the first study to examine the effect of experiencing a widespread, deadly epidemic on voting behavior. Using data on elections to the U.S House of Representatives and leveraging cross-district variation in HIV/AIDS mortality during the period 1983-1987, we document the effects of the...

Far-right and far-left parties by definition occupy the fringes of politics, with policy proposals outside the mainstream. This paper asks how public attitudes about such policies respond once an extreme party increases their political representation at the local level. We study attitudes...

We study the effect of former Communist party membership on paying bribes to public officials and motivations for bribery, 25 years after the fall of communist rule. Data come from a large representative survey, conducted in post-socialist countries in 2015/16. To deal with endogeneity, we...

After the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, former party members were particularly likely to start businesses and become entrepreneurs. However, it remains unclear whether this entrepreneurial activity was driven by the resources, information and opportunities provided by...