Political budget cycles (PBCs) result from the credibility problems that office-motivated incumbents face under asymmetric information, due to their temptation to manipulate fiscal policy to increase their electoral chances. We analyze the role of rules that limit debt, crucial for aggregate...

This paper develops a semiotic-inferential model of verbal communication for incomplete information games: a language is seen as a set of conventional signs that point to types, and the credibility of a message depends on the strategic context. Formally, there is an encoding-decoding step where...

The capacity to sustain policies over time and the capacity to adjust policies in the face of changing circumstances are two desirable properties of policymaking systems. The veto player approach has suggested that polities with more veto players will have the capacity to sustain policies at the...

Political budget cycles (PBCs) can result from the credibility problems office-motivated incumbents face under asymmetric information, due to the temptation to manipulate fiscal policy to increase their electoral chances. We analyze the role of rules that limit public debt, because borrowing is...

This paper develops a semiotic-inferential model of verbal communication for incomplete information games: a language is seen as a set of conventional signs that point to types, and the credibility of a message depends on the strategic context. Formally, there is an encoding-decoding step where...

Political budget cycles (PBCs) result from the credibility problems that office-motivated incumbents face under asymmetric information, due to their temptation to manipulate fiscal policy to increase their electoral chances. We analyze the role of rules that limit debt, crucial for aggregate...

This paper develops a semiotic-inferential model of verbal communication for incomplete information games: a language is seen as a set of conventional signs that point to types, and the credibility of a message depends on the strategic context. Formally, there is an encoding-decoding step where...

The capacity to sustain policies over time and the capacity to adjust policies in the face of changing circumstances are two desirable properties of policymaking systems. The veto player approach has suggested that polities with more veto players will have the capacity to sustain policies at the...

While economists have tended to focus on specific public policies when developing recommendations, the achievement of welfare objectives might depend more on the quality of policies than their content. This paper develops several measures of the qualities of policies across countries, arguing...