We study the formation of government policy in democracies when turnout depends on party activists and campaign spending ‐ parties’ ‘political capital’. The functional importance of political capital determines equilibrium rent-seeking in government. Often the more potent political...

Utilizing a political economy approach towards trade policy formulation, we examine the case of how the U.S. House voted on the PNTR status for China. Our focus is to analyze the factors affecting the legislators' voting behavior and to deduce the rationale behind these factors. We find that the...

Studies of the stability of international environmental agreements (IEAs) assumed a benevolent government who maximizes social welfare. The aim of our paper is to develop a theoretical framework in which the Government’s decisions are influenced by green and producer lobbies. To this end, we...

Public trust in government to promote the general interest has declined sharply since the early 1960s. Almost all those commenting on the trend see it as detrimental to government's ability to perform. We recognize that up to some level, trust does improve government performance, but beyond that...

Im gegenwärtigen Europawahlkampf vertritt Jean-Claude Juncker die Ansicht, dass europäische Staaten mit konservativen Regierungen bessere wirtschaftliche Daten vorweisen können als Staaten mit sozialistischen Regierungen. Ob Regierungen unterschiedlicher parteipolitischer Zusammensetzung auch...