We provide a framework to study the formation of financial networks and investigate the interplay between banks' lending incentives and the emergence of systemic risk. We show that under natural contracting assumptions, banks fail to internalize the implications of their lending decisions for...

Why do inefficient - non-growth enhancing - institutions emerge and persist? This paper develops a simple framework to provide some answers to this question. Political institutions determine the allocation of political power, and economic institutions determine the framework for policy-making...

We investigate how nondemocratic regimes use the military and how this can lead to the emergence of military dictatorships. Nondemocratic regimes need the use of force in order to remain in power, but this creates a political moral hazard problem; a strong military may not simply work as an...