Approximately one in forty adult U.S. citizens has lost their right to vote, either temporarily or permanently, as a result of a felony conviction. Because laws restricting voting by felons and ex-felons disproportionately affect minorities, and minorities tend to vote for Democratic candidates,...

In Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations and labor unions are unconstitutional. We analyze the effects of Citizens United on state election outcomes. We find that Citizens United is associated with an...

In a series of First Amendment cases, the U.S. Supreme Court established that government may regulate campaign finance, but not if regulation imposes costs on political speech and the purpose of regulation is to “level the political playing field.” The Court has applied this principle to...

We expose the conflicts between eight definitions of a barrier to entry that have been proposed in the economics literature. To resolve the conflicts, we introduce four new concepts, namely economic, antitrust, standalone, and ancillary barriers to entry. We then employ these concepts to...