Threats of mass revolts could effectively constrain a dictator's public policy if it were not for the collective-action problem. Mass revolts nevertheless happen, but they follow a stochastic pattern. We describe this pattern in a threshold model of collective action and integrate it into an...

We develop a simple model of an insurrection market based on a kleptocratic politico-economic institutional setting, within which a certain government elite holds both all central government position and all productive assets. The kleptocratic setting provokes the appearance of insurrection...