Intertemporal conflicts occur when a group of agents with heterogeneous time preferences must make a collective decision about how to manage a common asset. How should this be done? We examine two methods: an 'Economics' approach that seeks to implement efficient allocations, and a 'Politics'...

This paper asks why developing country policymakers have been so reluctant to undertake trade reform until the 1980s, and why many of them have embraced open trade policies so wholeheartedly since then. To answer these questions, the paper develops a heuristic index of the "political...

This paper takes a fresh look at the trade-off between centralized and decentralized provision of local public goods. The point of departure is to model a centralized system as one in which public spending is financed by general taxation, but districts can receive different levels of local...

Different beliefs about how fair social competition is and what determines income inequality, influence the redistributive policy chosen democratically in a society. But the composition of income in the first place depends on equilibrium tax policies. If a society believes that individual effort...

This paper analyzes a model in which different rational individuals vote over the composition and time profile of public spending. Potential disagreement between current and future majorities generates instability in the social choice function that aggregates individual preferences. In...