This paper argues for the central role of risk aversion in shaping political ideology. We develop a political economy model, which makes explicit the link between risk aversion, the labor market, government policy, and ideology. Our model distinguishes the effects of risk aversion from...

This paper argues for the central role of risk aversion in shaping political ideology. We develop a political economy model, which makes explicit the link between risk aversion, the labor market, government policy, and ideology. Our model distinguishes the effects of risk aversion from...

Why do corporate governance law and practice differ across countries? This paper explains how wage-setting institutions influence ownership structures and investor protection laws. In particular, we identify a nonmonotonic relationship between the level of centralization in wage-bargaining...

In the median-voter model of redistributive voting, an increase in the skewness of the income distribution will lead to more redistribution. Skewness is almost always assumed to be identical to inequality. But this will only be true under specific assumptions, and it is possible for an increase...

Do labor unions have a future? This Article considers the role and importance of labor union structures, in particular the degree of centralization in collective bargaining, to the future of labor unions. Centralization refers primarily to the level at which collective bargaining takes place:...

Should legal rules be used to redistribute income? Or should income taxation be the exclusive means for reducing income inequality? This article reviews the legal scholarship on this question. First, it traces how the most widely cited argument in favor of using taxes exclusively—Kaplow &...