This paper asks whether the results obtained from using the standard approach to testing the influential Grossman and Helpman "protection for sale" (PFS) model of political economy might arise from a simpler setting. A model of imports and quotas with protection occuring in response to import...

This paper critically and selectively surveys the literature on protection for sale and discusses directions for future research in this area. It suggests that the standard approach needs to be augmented to provide more compelling tests of this model.

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...

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...

This paper proposes a new test of the Protection for Sale (PFS) model by Grossman and Helpman (1994). Unlike existing methods in the literature, our approach does not require any data on political organization. We use quantile and IV quantile regressions in our tests, using the data from Gawande...

This paper develops an overlapping-generation model featuring four types of households: single female, single male, one-breadwinner couple and two-breadwinner couple. The paper considers majority voting over public pension in the presence of derived pension rights for one-breadwinner couples. In...

This paper develops an overlapping-generation model featuring four types of households: single female, single male, one-breadwinner couple and two-breadwinner couple. The paper considers majority voting over public pension in the presence of derived pension rights for one-breadwinner couples. In...