Costly signaling of commitment to a group has been proposed as an explanation forparticipation in religion and ritual. But if the signal’s cost is too small, freeriders willsend the signal and behave selfishly later. Effective signaling may then be prohibitivelycostly. If the average level of...

All rulers face political competition, both from rivals within their state, andfrom other states to which their subjects may exit. In a simple model, both kinds of competitionare substitutes. Internal competition (democracy) benefits citizens by allowingthem to replace rent-seeking rulers. But...