We consider an overlapping generations closed economy in which a government finances the cost of public good provision by labor income taxation and/or public debt issuance. The size of these public policies is determined in a repeated probabilistic voting game. We investigate the characteristics...

I illustrate by example a way in which equilibria under probabilistic voting are fragile with respect to assumptions about the non-policy components of voter preferences. I also offer intuition for the fragility using the social welfare functions which also describe the equilibria.

Whether individuals vote strategically is one of the most important questions at the intersection of economics and political science. Exploiting a flaw in the German electoral system by which a party may gain seats by receiving fewer votes, this paper documents patterns of strategic voting in a...

This paper formulates a simple mathematical framework for the selection of an optimum "relative unanimity” collective decision rule. The approach is first to identify the benefits of moving from a rule of simple majority towards a rule of full unanimity. Then, the costs of moving from simple...

This paper examines the political economy of emerging infectious disease (EID) surveillance programs. It provides lessons learned for U.S. military medical research laboratories collaborating with developing countries and is comprised of four case studies: Kenya (U.S. Army Medical Research...

This paper addresses the interaction of voter information and seniority on electoral accountability. We test whether information leads voters to be less tolerant of moral hazard in a legislative system favoring seniority. A simple game theoretic model is used to predict outcomes in a pork-barrel...

This paper uses experiments to explore electoral accountability in a legislative system that favors seniority. Voters face a trade-off between pork barrel transfers and policy representation. Term limits are tested as a mechanism to reduce the cost of searching for a legislator who better...

In this paper, we formulate a political system that can satisfy certain desirable characteristics that include democratic participation, serving for universal interest, public sector efficiency, and sustainable by incentive compatibility and virtuous cycles. The system comprises a set of rules...

While the role of money in policymaking is a central question in political economy research, surprisingly little attention has been given to the rents politicians actually derive from politics. We use both matching and a regression discontinuity design to analyze an original dataset on the...

In this paper I show that in a parliamentary democracy, contrary to common wisdom, under a proportional electoral rule governments do not necessarily represent voters' preferences better than under plurality rule. While voters affect the composition of Parliament, decisions are taken by a subset...