The nineteenth century was a time of substantial changes in the patterns of economic growth. This was also a period of significant fluctuations in the structure of and allocation of political rights. Through successive franchise extensions, democracy expanded dramatically, giving birth to the...

This article introduces a static, within-country, game-theoretic model of litigated conflict over fundamental rights. The static model suggests that increased judicial interference in the determination of fundamental rights through democratic elections is never social welfare-increasing, even if...

Following the wave of democratization during the 1990s, elections are now common in low-income societies.  However, these elections are frequently flawed.  We investigate the Nigerian general election of 2007, which is to date the largest election held in Africa and one seriously marred by...

This paper provides a general framework for analyzing political (in)stability in comparative political systems. It distinguishes different subgroups of a society, some of which have a potential for pursuing a redistribution of wealth in its broadest sense via constitutional or non-constitutional...

This paper explores the extent to which episodes of democratization can be explained by variation in income inequality. Modern empirical tests of this relationship have generally yielded null results, which we argue follow from the estimation of mis-specified models. Guided by a theoretical...

This paper formulates a simple mathematical framework for the selection of an optimum "relative unanimity” collective decision rule. The approach is first to identify the benefits of moving from a rule of simple majority towards a rule of full unanimity. Then, the costs of moving from simple...

The optimal consumption growth rate for a group in a strictly political federation in a dual-population land is lower than that under partition if the group is wealthier and has a lower population growth rate than its counterpart. Even in such circumstances the group may economically benefit...

Many episodes of extension of franchise in the 19th and especially in the 20th century occurred during or in the aftermath of major wars. Motivated by this fact, we offer a theory of political transitions which focuses on the impact of international conflicts on domestic political institutions....

We study the incentives to expropriate foreign capital under democracy and obligarchy. We model a two-sector small open economy where foreign investment triggers Stolper-Samuelson effects through reducing exporting costs. We show how incentives to expropriate depend on the distributional effects...

The recent literature on endogenous political institutions highlights domestic economic factors, such as recessions, economic growth and inequality, as key determinants of political transitions. We argue that international capital flows and the possibility that foreign governments, in order to...