The possibility of treason by a close associate has been a nightmare of most autocrats throughout history. More competent viziers are better able to discriminate among potential plotters, and this makes them more risky subordinates for the ruler. To avoid this, rulers, especially those which are...

Popular protests and palace coups are the two domestic threats to dictators. We show that free media, which informs citizens about their rulers, is a double-edged sword that alleviates one threat, but exacerbates the other. Informed citizens may protest against a ruler, but they may also protest...

We study an election with two perfectly informed candidates. Voters share common values over the policy outcome of the election, but possess arbitrarily little information about which policy is best for them. Voters elect one of the candidates, effectively choosing between the two policies...

In a competitive environment players often face uncertainty about the relative strength of their opponents. This paper considers a winner-take-all rent-seeking contest between two players with different costs of effort. Costs of effort are private knowledge, however, players have an opportunity...

The paper analyzes a communication game between a decision-maker and a reputationally concerned expert drawn from a population of informed and uninformed experts. It departs from the literature [e.g. (Ottaviani and Sorensen(2006), Scharfstein and Stein (1990)] by considering the possibility that...

The level of competence that voters attribute to different candidates is an important determinant of election results. In addition, it is observed that some candidates tend to be more ambiguous in their campaigns regarding future plans, while others commit to specific policies. We offer a model...

In their seminal solution of the chain store paradox Kreps and Wilson assumed that the incumbent monopolist is predisposed, with a small probability, to ght entry. Milgrom and Roberts suggested to view this predisposition to ght as a result of precommitment to an aggressive course of action....

In an important contribution Bagwell [1995] showed that the value of commitment tends to vanish if the observability of commitments is subject to an arbitrarily small distortion, due to the possibility of misunderstanding or communication error. Bagwell's observation calls into question the many...