This paper examines voting by members of Congress on three trade bills introduced in 1993 and 1994: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the agreements concluded in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations (GATT), and most-favored nation status for China. We first review...

One of the most cherished propositions in economics is that market competition by and large raises consumer welfare. But whether political competition has similarly virtuous consequences is far less discussed. This paper formulates a model to explain why political competition may enhance...

Using data from 1869 to 1928, we estimate the effect of party control of state governments on the entry, exit, circulation, prices, number of pages, and content of Republican and Democratic daily newspapers. We exploit changes over time in party control of the governorship and state legislatures...