With ideological parties being better informed about the state of the world than voters, the true motivation of policy proposals is hard to judge for the electorate. However, if reform proposals have to be agreed upon by government members with heterogeneous policy preferences, it may become...

We analyse a cheap-talk game where contrasting lobbies are asymmetrically informed. Equilibrium information transmission depends on each lobby's preference alignment with the legislator on the dimension of its expertise, and on the conflict of lobby interests. Full revelation is possible only...

The consequences of strike ballots are analysed in a non-cooperative model of negotiations between a union and a firm over wage increases. The firm possesses private information about its revenues. The union can only stop the firm from rejecting wage demands if a refusal is costly, due to a...

Conventional arguments suggest that republics ought to grow faster than monarchies and experience lower transitional costs following reforms. We employ a panel of 27 countries observed from 1820 to 2000 to estimate these differences. Results show no significant growth differences between the two...

This paper investigates a long-run equilibrium of the Tullock contest using an evolutionary game-theoretic approach. The finite-population evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) yields overdissipation of rent when there are increasing returns to expenditure. However, imitative behavior, considered...

We study two-player contests in which, in order to win a prize, each player hires a delegate to expend effort on her behalf; neither party's delegation contract is revealed to the rival party when the delegates choose their effort levels. We obtain first the outcomes of this...

I analyze the postelectoral coalition formation process in a two-dimensional political environment. The two dimensions are the degree of a proportional tax rate and the degree of a group-specific public good. Parties are office-motivated and care instrumentally about policy. I analyze when...

The paper analyses the process of coalition formation among political parties using game-theoretic concepts. Two different motives determining that process are distinguished: the parties' preferences over alternative policies and the politicians' desire to get into office. Based on these...

In this paper we focus on a few broad analytical themes that have not been paid enough attention in the theoretical institutional economics literature: in particular, (a) the process of persistence of dysfunctional institutions in poor countries, (b) institutional impediments as strategic...

The efficiency hypothesis of institutional change is formulated in a general economic setting. The validity of this hypothesis depends on the specification of the new institution and the political process governing the institutional change. The issue is formulated as an implementation problem...