I describe a structural method to quantify the contribution of different elements of social choice to the level of redistribution. Estimating a DSGE model with microdata on the support for redistribution, I find that if voters disregarded their ideological views on welfare policies,...

We try to demonstrate how economists may engage in research on comparative politics, relating the size and composition of government spending to the political system. A Downsian model of electoral competition and forward-looking voting indicates that majoritarian--as opposed to...

We investigate a recent political theory of institutional change according to which institutions of economic freedom are more likely to be adopted at the extreme cases of strong and weak political competition than at cases in between. We find that such a U-shaped relationship is verified when...

In this paper, a new approach to disclose the impact of politics on economic growth is presented: we use data derived from content analysis of party manifestos as measures of party preferences. In a panel of 23 OECD countries, we detect a positive impact of party support for various...

Some numbers in the political sphere seem to be chosen rather arbitrarily. One example might be the rule set out by the Second Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court in 1995 that the overall tax load on assets must be limited to 50% of the yield on those assets. This rule was...

There is often a gap between the prescriptions of an "optimal" tax system and actual tax systems, some of which can be neither efficient economically nor efficient at redistributing income. With a focus on personal income taxes, this paper reviews the political economics literature on tax...

Dictatorship has been one of the most persistent regime types in history. Different dictators have applied different strategies for obtaining political support in different societies. We discuss and empirically estimate the hypothesis that states that dictators rely more on military for...

We document that the spread of the Mafia in Sicily at the end of the 19th century was in part shaped by the rise of socialist Peasant Fasci organizations. In an environment with weak state presence, this socialist threat triggered landholders, estate managers and local politicians to turn to the...

I present a theory of political property rights that serves as a complement to familiar Tiebout mechanisms in explaining governance outcomes. I argue that when the structure of political property rights is such that the polity most closely resembles a business corporation, governance will be...

We argue James M. Buchanan's scholarship provides us an exemplary model for doing liberal political economy. Levy (2014) argues there are irreconcilable tensions within liberalism between rationalism and pluralism. Buchanan navigates these tensions in a way that powered one of the most important...