In standard political economy models, voters are "self-interested" that is, care only about "own" utility. However, the emerging evidence indicates that voters often have "other-regarding preferences" (ORP), that is, in deciding among alternative policies voters care about their payoffs relative...

In a seminal paper, Becker (1968) showed that the most efficient way to deter crime is to impose the severest possible penalty (to maintain adequate deterrence) with the lowest possible probability (to economize on costs of enforcement). We shall call this the Becker proposition (BP). The BP is...

In a critique of the Loewenstein and Prelec [Loewenstein G., Prelec D., 1992. Anomalies in intertemporal choice: Evidence and an interpretation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, 573-597] theory of intertemporal choice, [al-Nowaihi, A., Dhami, S., 2006. A note on the Loewenstein-Prelec...

This paper develops a principal-agent model to explore the interaction of corruption, bribery, and political oversight of production. Under full information, an honest politician achieves the first best while a dishonest politician creates shortages and bribes. Under asymmetric information, an...