We present a model of elections in which interest group donations allow candidates to shift policy positions. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the platform choices of candidates would exist. Our game with financing of political campaigns exhibits two...

We consider a collective choice process where three players make proposals sequentially on how to divide a given quantity of resources. Afterwards, one of the proposals is chosen by majority decision. If no proposal obtains a majority, a proposal is drawn by lot. We establish the existence of...

We introduce democratic mechanisms where individual utilities are not observable by other people at the legislative stage. We show that the combination of three rules can yield efficient provision of public projects: First, flexible and double majority rules where the size of the majority...

When politicians are provided with insufficient incentives by the democratic election mechanism, we show that social welfare can be improved by threshold contracts. A threshold incentive contract stipulates a performance level which a politician must reach in order to have the right to stand for...

When politicians are short-term oriented or future elections do not sufficiently reflect the success of past policies, democratic elections cannot motivate politicians to undertake long-term socially beneficial projects. When politicians can offer incentive contracts which become effective upon...

In this paper we introduce flexible majority decision rules where the size of the majority depends on the proposal made by the agenda setter. Flexible majority rules can mitigate the disadvantages of democracies in the provision of public projects. In many cases, the combination of the...

We consider non-cooperative bargaining on the division of a surplus under simple majority rule. We use the "open rule" bargaining protocol as originally suggested by Baron and Ferejohn (1989): Proposals can be amended before they are voted on. It is widely known that there are significant gaps...

We suggest that flexible majority rules for currency issuance decisions foster the stability of a cryptocurrency. With flexible majority rules, the voteshare needed to approve a particular currency issuance growth is increasing with this growth rate. By choosing suitable parameters for these...

We study how to efficiently motivate policy-makers to solve political multitask problems. Political multi-task problems typically have outcomes that are difficult to measure. Moreover, there are conflicts among citizens about optimal policies and the agents have the power to tax the citizens to...

We study the political economy of bank capital regulation from a positive and normative perspective. In a general equilibrium setting, capital requirements and lobbying contributions are determined as the outcome of bargaining between banks and politicians. We show that bankers and politicians...