When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be influenced or corrupted by the rich … right. Truly right-wing politicians respond by choosing more moderate, or even left-of-center policies. This populist bias … polarization between the policy preferences of the median voter and right-wing politicians; when politicians are indeed more likely …

We develop a political economy model where some politicians have a comparative advantage in undertaking a task and this … sufficiently important, large defeats for the insurgents should reduce the probability that politicians with comparative advantage … politicians need enemies to maintain their political advantage and act so as to keep the enemy alive …

puzzle in standard economic models. To study this phenomenon, we propose a positive theory of IEAs in which the political … (might not be implemented in full). The theory also provides a new perspective for understanding investments in green …

Opportunistic politicians maximize the probability of reelection and rents from office holding. Can it be optimal from … their point of view to delegate policy choices to independent bureaucracies? The answer is yes: politicians will delegate … some policy tasks, though in general not those that would be socially optimal to delegate. In particular, politicians tend …

involving Republican politicians than scandals involving Democratic politicians, while Republican-leaning newspapers tend to do …

interest group's campaign contributions to politicians. We uncover a robust hump-shaped relationship between the voting share … estimates of electoral uncertainty and politicians effectiveness as perceived by the interest groups. Our approach also …

, then politicians who are very competent on both issues will switch. If voters have superior information on a politician … than the other, the politicians are more likely to campaign on the more important issue. If politicians are able to … informed and better off, but has an ambiguous effect on politicians' utility. The model and the results may help understand …