In this paper we axiomatically characterize two recursive procedures for defining a social group. The first procedure starts with the set of all individuals who are defined by everyone in the society as group members, while the starting point of the second procedure is the set of all individuals...

In this paper we examine the impact of tax contracts as a novel institution on elections, policies, and welfare. We consider a political game in which three parties compete to form the government. Parties have policy preferences about the level of public-good provision and benefit from perks...

Economic systems generate various distributions of opportunity sets for individuals to choose consumption bundles. This paper presents an axiomatic analysis on distributions of opportunity sets. We introduce several reasonable properties of distributions of opportunity sets, and characterize the...

Economic systems generate various distributions of opportunity sets for individuals to choose consumption bundles. This paper presents an axiomatic analysis on distributions of opportunity sets. We introduce several reasonable properties of distributions of opportunity sets, and characterize the...

Conditions α and β are two well-known rationality conditions in the theory of rational choice. This paper examines the implication of weaker versions of these two rationality conditions in the context of solutions to non-convex bargaining problems. It is shown that, together with the standard...

Politicians may pander to public opinion and may renounce undertaking beneficial long-term projects. To alleviate this problem, we introduce a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to...