This paper empirically evaluates two competing theories of electoral accountability in the context of New Orleans’ 2006 mayoral election. According to the democratic efficiency theory, voters can successfully punish ineffective political agents by removing them from office. In contrast, the...

We use public choice theory to explain the failure of FEMA and other governmental agencies to carry out effective disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The areas in which we focus are: (1) the tragedy of the anti-commons resulting from layered bureaucracy, (2) a type-two error policy...

Both Hayek and Arrow provide arguments about the inability of the vote process to yield a coherent social choice. Hayek demonstrated that planning is incompatible with democracy; its coherence requires dictatorship. Arrow demonstrated that voting fails to produce rational social choices; social...

The economic approach to politics revolutionized the way scholars in economics and political science approached the study of political decision-making by introducing the possibility of government failure. However, the persistent and consistent application of neoclassical models of economics also...

This paper introduces the idea of robust political economy. In the context of political economic systems, robustness refers to a political economic arrangement's ability to produce social welfare-enhancing outcomes in the face of deviations from ideal assumptions about individuals' motivations...