The critical election of 1932 represented a turning point in the future electoral successes of the Democrats and Republicans for over three decades. This paper seeks to measure the importance of the New Deal in facilitating the Democrats' control of the federal government well into the 1960s. We...

Women's suffrage led to one of the greatest enfranchisements in history. Voting rights, however, were not won by force or threats thereof, a fact leading political economy theories find hard to explain. Studying the timing of suffrage extensions in US states between 1869 and 1919, we find that a...

We analyze electorally motivated public spending using disaggregated expenditure data. Election cycles in total expenditures and in specific sub-categories mainly exist in newly democratized Eastern European countries. However, electorally motivated spending policies are ineffective means to...

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 investigate empirically how electoral democracy and judicial independence relate to personal freedom. While judicial independence is positively and robustly related to personal freedom in all its forms, electoral democracy displays a robust, positive relationship with only two out of seven...

Personal freedom is highly valued by many and a central element of liberal political philosophy. Although personal freedom is frequently associated with electoral democracy, developments in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Russia, where elected populist leaders with authoritarian...

Personal freedom is highly valued by many and a central element of liberal political philosophy. Although personal freedom is frequently associated with electoral democracy, developments in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Russia, where elected populist leaders with authoritarian...

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters punish the ruling party...

In democracies, trade policy is the result of interactions among many agents with different agendas. In accordance with this observation, we construct a dynamic model of legislative trade policy-making in the realm of distributive politics. An economy consists of different sectors, each of which...

In this paper, a lobby group or union may influence public policy because it is able, via a costly signal such as a boycott or a strike, to negatively impact the image of decision makers. The competence of a government is measured by its ability to do a lot with only a little money. Voters...