This note presents some of the consequences due to the possibility of having early elections. First of all, elections, whether exogenously or endogenously determined, are relevant to challenge the well known neutrality principle of economic policies under rational expectations. Furthermore, in...

What explains significant variation across countries in the use of vote buying instead of campaign promises to secure voter support? This paper explicitly models the tradeoff parties face between engaging in vote buying and making campaign promises, and explores the distributional consequences...

Results from a new experiment shed light on the effects of voter information on vote buying and incumbent advantage. The treatment provided voters with information about a major spending program and the proposed allocations and promises of mayoral candidates just prior to municipal elections. It...

We assess the influence of moneyed interests on legislative decisions. Our theory predicts that the vote outcome distribution and donation flows in a legislature feature a discontinuity at the approval threshold of bills if special interest groups are involved in vote buying. Testing the...

To enact a policy, a leader needs votes from committee members with heterogeneous opposition intensities. She sequentially offers transfers in exchange for votes. The transfers are either promises paid only if the policy passes or paid up front. With transfer promises, a vote costs nearly zero....

Vote buying is a form of political clientelism involving pre-electoral transfers of money or material benefits from candidates to voters. Despite the presence of secret ballots, vote buying remains a pervasive during elections in developing countries. While prior literature has focused on how...

To enact a policy, a leader needs votes from committee members with heterogeneous opposition intensities. She sequentially offers transfers in exchange for votes. The transfers are either promises paid only if the policy is put to a vote or paid up front. With transfer promises, the leader buys...