A central challenge in political economy is to identify the conditions under which legislators seek to bring home the pork to constituents. We conduct the first systematic analysis of one determinant of constituency service, voter attachment to political parties, holding constant electoral and...

We analyze a simple stochastic environment where policymakers can be threatened by "nasty" interest groups. In the absence of these groups, the policymaker's desire for reelection guarantees that good policies are implemented for every realization of the shock. When pressure groups can harass...

We argue that the market for lobbying services is a function of two key features of modern American politics: (1) the decline in Congress's analytic capacity and (2) the concentration of agenda setting powers to party leaders that has come with increased polarization in government. These trends...

This paper examines the link of political participation and employment status in a dualized labor market. Both insiders and outsiders can actively take part in political decision-making, e.g. by voting for a certain party. Insiders only have the resources to also provide financial donations to...

Antidumping (AD) is the most widely used contingent protection measure. In the United States, key decisions on AD are delegated to the International Trade Commission (ITC), an independent agency composed of six non-elected commissioners. Using a newly collected dataset, I study the determinants...

We study the potential benefits and mechanisms of firms' political connections by analyzing the Italian experience, where, in the early nineties, Silvio Berlusconi, a rich TV tycoon, became the leader of the conservative political coalition. Using firm-level data, we find that the 101 companies...

Politicians have multiple principals. We investigate the weights that politicians put on the revealed preferences of their constituents, special interest groups and party when deciding on legislative proposals. Preferences of constituents, special interest groups and parties are directly...

This paper studies the manipulation of electoral maps by political parties, known as gerrymandering. At the core of our analysis is the recognition that districts must have the same population size but only voters matter for electoral incentives. Using a novel model of gerrymandering that allows...

We analyze a simple stochastic environment where policymakers can be threatened by "nasty" interest groups. In the absence of these groups, the policymaker's desire for reelection guarantees that good policies are implemented for every realization of the shock. When pressure groups can harass...