In this paper we present a structural approach to the study of government formation in multi-party parliamentary democracies. The approach is based on the estimation of a stochastic bargaining model which we use to investigate the effects of specific institutional features of parliamentary...

This paper studies the nonparametric identification and estimation of voters' preferences when voters are ideological. We establish that voter preference distributions and other parameters of interest can be identified from aggregate electoral data. We also show that these objects can be...

In this paper we consider a dynamic model of government formation and termination in parliamentary democracies. Our analysis accounts for the following observed phenomena: (1) Cabinet reshuffles; (2) Cabinet replacements; (3) Early elections; (4) Surplus governments; (5) Minority governments;...

This paper studies the nonparametric identification and estimation of voters' preferences when voters are ideological. We establish that voter preference distributions and other parameters of interest can be identified from aggregate electoral data. We also show that these objects can be...

We conduct a model validation analysis of several behavioral models of voter turnout, using laboratory data. We call our method of model validation concealed parameter recovery, where estimation of a model is done under a veil of ignorance about some of the experimentally controlled parameters...

We study the recruitment of individuals in the political sector. We propose an equilibrium model of political recruitment by two political parties competing in an election. We show that political parties may deliberately choose to recruit only mediocre politicians, in spite of the fact that they...

This paper studies the nonparametric identification and estimation of voters' preferences when voters are ideological. We establish that voter preference distributions and other parameters of interest can be identified from aggregate electoral data. We also show that these objects can be...

In this paper we address the following question: To what extent is the hypothesis that voters vote quot;ideologicallyquot; (i.e., they always vote for the candidate who is ideologically quot;closestquot; to them) testable or falsifiable? We show that using data only on how individuals vote in a...

This paper develops a unified approach to study participation and voting in multiple elections. The theoretical setting combines an quot;uncertain-voterquot; model of turnout with a spatial model of voting behavior. We apply our framework to the study of turnout and voting in U.S. presidential...

In this paper we assess the impact of a variety of policies that may influence the career decisions of members of the U.S. Congress, using the empirical framework of Diermeier, Keane and Merlo (2005). These policies alter incentives to run for re-election, run for higher office or leave...