How many dimensions adequately characterize voting on U.S. trade policy? How are these dimensions to be interpreted? This paper seeks those answers in the context of voting on the landmark 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act. The paper takes steps beyond the existing literature. First,...

We study two issues in the enforcement of public law. The first is whether the system of inspections and penalties set by the regulator is effective. The second is whether a better system of inspections and penalties can be designed, given the institutional constraints under which the regulator...

Given three stylized facts about the US Coast Guard (USCG), namely, soft penalties for safety violations, low incidence of penalties relative to the number of violations, and substantial resources devoted to inspections of vessels, this paper seeks (i) a theoretical lens to view USCG activities...