How does competition affect the entry and selection of politicians? I use data on U.S. Congressional primary and general elections for the years 1998-2014 to study this question. I measure quality using previous legislative experience and the novel "identity match" quantifying how well...

Many observers have noticed the importance of anger in contemporary politics, particularly with reference to populism. This article addresses the question under which conditions people become angry about a specific aspect of their lives: their personal financial situation. Specifically, it asks...

Many observers have noticed the importance of anger in contemporary politics, particularly with reference to populism. This article addresses the question under which conditions people become angry about a specific aspect of their lives: their personal financial situation. Specifically, it asks...

We provide an explanation why centralisation of political decision makingresults in overspending in some policy domains, whereas too low spending persists in others.We study a model in which delegates from jurisdictions bargain over local public goods provision.If all of the costs of public...

A computable model of economic and political competition is developed in which tax rates and the size of government are determined along with private prices and quantities in a broader equilibrium. The framework is applied to the United States by incorporating the GEMTAP model (with 19...

In previous work with Mark Lemley I have discussed the critical role played by the courts in fitting patent law to the ongoing needs of innovation. Careful scrutiny of the recently enacted America Invents Act (AIA), which legislatively reforms American patent law, underscores the need for robust...

In this reply to a comment by Jentsch and Lunsford, we show that, when focusing on the relevant impulse responses, the evidence for economic and statistically significant macroeconomic effects of tax changes in Mertens and Ravn (2013) remains present for a range of asymptotically valid inference...

Proxy structural vector autoregressions (SVARs)identify structural shocks in vector autoregressions (VARs) with external proxy variables that are correlated with the structural shocks of interest but uncorrelated with other structural shocks. We provide asymptotic theory for proxy SVARs when the...

This study uses disclosure data from 7,043 Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) in the United States to examine differences in client wealth by type of compensation. We find that firms charging commissions and hourly fees have a higher proportion of low net worth clients. Wealthier clients are...

We study the persistent effects of temporary changes in U.S. federal corporate and personal income tax rates using a narrative identification approach. A corporate income tax cut leads to a sustained increase in GDP and productivity, with peak effects between five and eight years. R&D spending...