We study a class of representation mechanisms, based on reports made by a random subset of agents, called representatives, in a collective choice problem with quasi-linear utilities. We do not assume the existence of a common prior probability describing the distribution of preference types. In...

Public choice theory takes citizens as rationally ignorant about political issues, because the costs of being informed greatly exceed the utility individuals derive from it. The costs of information (supply side) as well as the utility of information (demand side), however, can vary...

This paper is aimed at assesssing the empirical relevance of the new theory of regulation inspired by the theory of incentives. It contributes to the econometrics of asymmetric information models by using the principal-agent framework for studying the regulatory schemes used in French urban...

Myerson and Satterthwaite (1983) prove that if one seller and one buyer have independent private valuations for an indivisible object then no individually rational and incentive compatible trading mechanism can guarantee ex post efficiency when gains from trade are uncertain. Makowski and...

This Paper develops a model of political consensus in order to explain the missing link between inequality and political redistribution. Political consensus is an implicit agreement not to vote for extreme policy proposals. We show that such an agreement may play an efficiency-enhancing role....

The paper presents in a simple model the possible choices and constraints facing democratic governments when confronting an anti-democratic party challenge that is able to seriously endanger the survival of the democratic system.

This paper surveys and evaluates alternative views regarding the desirable combination of accountability, credibility and trasnparency in the newly created ECB (European Central Bank), including recent controversies regarding publication of minutes, Council member votes and ECB forecasts.

This paper uses the unique social structure of Arab communities to examine the effect of social identity on voter turnout. We first show that voters are more likely to vote for a candidate who shares their social group (signified by last name) as compared to other candidates. Using last name as...

This paper presents metrics to estimate the size of political dynasties in the 15th Congress of the Republic of the Philippines and analyze the relationship between political dynasty and socio-economic outcomes. Results show that political dynasties comprise 70 percent of jurisdiction-based...

This paper refers to the ranking of densities that describe the distribution of an attribute in a given set of populations. The key elements of the problem are: (i) The distributions refer to ordered categorical data (e.g. health statuses, educational achievements, prestige positions,...