We present a model of growth and distributional conflict that implies a non-monotonic relationship between average wealth and the likelihood of radical redistribution: while the net benefits of redistribution for members of the poor class are small at low stages of development, a shift towards...

Turkey was shown as a model country by Western capitals in the early 2000s because it successfully embraced the neoliberal economic path and "moderate Islamist" values. In the last couple of years, however, Turkey has been in a state of turmoil, which has included the failure of the so-called...

Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper investigates this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two coun¬tries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. We can thereby separate an election...

In this note, three major areas of Buchanan's research are briefly described: (1) The ideas of Knut Wicksell on Buchanan's work, (2) constitutional economics and the veil of ignorance, and (3) the role of government and/or the power to tax. It is shown that these three areas had a major...

We study the informational effectiveness of electoral campaigns. Voters may not think about all political issues and have incomplete information with regard to political positions of candidates. Nevertheless, we show that if candidates are allowed to microtarget voters with messages then...

The spread of propaganda, misinformation, and biased narratives from autocratic regimes, especially on social media, is a growing concern in many democracies. Can censorship be an effective tool to curb the spread of such slanted narratives? In this paper, we study the European Union's ban on...

This paper explores the mutual influence between the institutional development in Athens in the archaic and classical periods and the contemporary changes in economic life. This enhances our understanding of the causes and consequences of institutional change. It is also worth exploring in view...

Between the 2014 and 2018 Swedish parliamentary elections, the vote share of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats increased significantly. To evaluate the possibility of a causal link between immigration and the right-wing populist vote, this paper uses data from a nationwide policy experiment,...

What are the political effects of a nuclear accident? Following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, environmentalist parties were elected to parliaments in several nations. This paper uses Chernobyl as a natural experiment creating variation in radioactive fallout exposure over Sweden. I match...

We estimate the impact of immigration on the upsurge of populism in Italy. Our data considers electoral results at municipality level of the Senate of the Italian Republic and the Chamber of Deputies over the period 2006-2018. Findings in our research point toward a positive impact of the share...