Controlling government is a primary focus of the politico-economic literature. Recently, various political institutions have been analyzed from this perspective, most importantly balanced budget rules, fiscal federalism, and direct democracy. However, one type of institution has been neglected...

We reply to the comment of John Carey and Simon Hix on our original contribution entitled “District Magnitude and Representation of the Majority’s Preferences: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Popular and Parliamentary Votes” in Public Choice 151:585–610 (<CitationRef CitationID="CR3">2012</CitationRef>). District magnitude does...</citationref>

Representatives have more effective incentives to cater to the preferences of the majority of citizens when they are elected in districts with few rather than many seats. We investigate this hypothesis empirically by matching Swiss members of parliament’s voting behavior on legislative...

In this paper, we empirically test for the influence of fairness considerations on the willingness to redistribute income in private and in democratic decisions. In contrast to standard explanations of income redistribution, our theory takes into account that prices shift decisively as we move...

Rational voters' assessments of candidates and policy proposals are unbiased but affected by random errors. 'Clean' information decreases these errors, while 'dirty' information increases them. In politics, most voting procedures weigh random individual errors asymmetrically. Thus, such errors...

In this paper, the authors empirical]y test for the influence of fairness considerations on the willingness to redistribute income in private and in democratic decisions. In contrast to standard explanations of income redistribution, the authors' theory takes into account that prices shift...

Results in cognitive psychology and experimental economics indicate that under identifiable conditions individuals do not act in an economically rational way. These results are important for political economy. Anomalies appear in the behavior of voters, politicians, and administrators. Economic...