This paper develops a theory of policy making, that examines the incentives for experimentation with new policies and the scrappage of adopted policies. We demonstrate that a government which cares about its reputation out of electoral concerns, takes socially ine?cient policy gambles that may...

Why are coordination problems common when public sector organizations share responsibilities, and what can be done to mitigate such problems? This paper uses a multi-task principal-agent model to examine two related reasons: the incentives to coordinate resource allocation and the difficulties...

Why are coordination problems common when public sector organizations share responsibilities, and what can be done to mitigate such problems? This paper uses a multi-task principal-agent model to examine two related reasons: the incentives to coordinate resource allocation and the difficulties...

This paper studies the effect of social learning on political outcomes in a model of informative campaign advertising. We find that communication networks among voters have important effects on parties' incentives to disclose political information, on voters' learning about candidates running...

A committee divided into two factions is considering a costly project. Support of both factions is required for the project to be approved. As long as the decision is delayed, the committee can learn which faction benefits from the project. At the equilibrium, one of the factions effectively...

When different stages of the evaluation of a multi-attribute project rest with conflicting economic actors, which attributes are selectively explored and why? We provide a model of attribute sampling in which correlation across attributes is flexibly modeled through Gaussian processes. In the...

We consider a two period model in which an incumbent political party chooses the level of a current policy variable unilaterally, but faces competition from a political opponent in the future. Both parties care about voters' payoffs, but they have different beliefs about how policy choices will...

We consider a two period model in which an incumbent political party chooses the level of a current policy variable unilaterally, but faces competition from a political opponent in the future. Both parties care about voters' payoffs, but they have different beliefs about how policy choices will...

We consider a median voter model with uncertainty about how the economy functions. The distribution of income is exogenously given and the provision of a public good is financed through a proportional tax. Voters and politicians do not know the true production function for the public good, but...