The 2007 U.S. Attorney firing scandal raised the specter of political bias in the prosecution of officials under federal corruption laws. Has prosecutorial discretion been employed to persecute enemies or shield allies? To answer this question, I develop a model of the interaction between...

This paper investigates the effects of sanctions on the behavior of deputies in the French National Assembly. In 2009, the Assembly introduced small monetary sanctions to prevent absenteeism in weekly standing committee meetings (held on Wednesday mornings). Using a rich monthly panel dataset of...

Higher electoral competition reinforces the position of special interest groups, which can endorse politicians in exchange for the support of specific policies. This paper formalizes this intuition and test it on Italian electoral data, using the 1991 electoral reform as an exogenous source of...

I investigate if, how, and why the effect of a contribution rule in a public goods game depends on how it is implemented: endogenously chosen or externally imposed. The rule prescribes full contributions to the public good backed by a nondeterrent sanction for those who do not comply. My...

I investigate if, how, and why the effect of a contribution rule in a public goods game depends on how it is implemented: endogenously chosen or externally imposed. The rule prescribes full contributions to the public good backed by a nondeterrent sanction for those who do not comply. My...

This analysis investigates a political corruption model that builds on previous literature on corruption in hierarchies. Our study enriches the literature on political corruption emphasizing the contrasting role of the minorities having a control role of the majorities. In particular, this paper...

The expression "cash-for-votes" describes a form of vote buying in which candidates for office pay individuals in exchange for their votes. That practice undermines the functioning of democracy but is pervasive in many parts of the world, especially in the Global South. We discuss estimates of...

We analyze an oligopoly model in which differentiated criminal organizations globally compete on criminal activities and engage in local corruption to avoid punishment. When law enforcers are sufficiently well-paid, difficult to bribe and corruption detection highly probable, we show that...

Can corruption improve economic efficiency? Classical political economists argue that corruption undermines the rule of law (Smith 2001, Chap 5). The modern Public Choice proponents argue that corruption might influence the efficiency of the rule of law. While Chicago Public Choice scholars...

This paper investigates the association between corruption and political power, using individual level data on political corruption cases tried in France during the period 1980-2006. We test the hypothesis that corruption conviction and severity of punishment are negatively associated with...