This study looks at firms' investment spending in fixed and intangible assets around three types of national elections: presidential, joint presidential, and legislative and parliamentary elections. Investments in fixed assets decline by up to 2% during presidential elections, and 4.44% in joint...

Freedom of movement is one of the great issues of our time. Expanding opportunities for both international and internal migration can greatly expand freedom and opportunity for hundreds of millions of people. The same goes for expanding freedom of choice in the private sector. “Voting with...

Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But it has two major shortcomings: individual voters have little chance of making a difference, and they also face strong incentives to remain ignorant about the issues at stake. "Voting with your feet," however, avoids both...

I study the consequences for governance of efforts to curb voter-buying. I explore the effects of Brazil’s 2007 voter re-registration reform. Exploiting a discontinuity in the targeting of municipalities assigned to the reform, I examine the response for mayoral elections, public expenditures...

This paper utilizes a unique dataset on votes cast by Czech and Polish migrants in recent national elections in their home countries. The political preferences of migrants as manifested by their voting behavior are strikingly different from those of their home-country counterparts. In addition,...

This paper utilizes a unique dataset on votes cast by Czech and Polish migrants in recent national elections in their home countries. The political preferences of migrants as manifested by their voting behavior are strikingly different from those of their home-country counterparts. In addition,...

How far can media undermine democratic institutions and how persuasive can it be in assuring public support for dictator policies? We study this question in the context of Germany before World War II, between 1929 and 1939. First, we estimate the impact of radio signal on voting for the Nazi...

Modern autocracies today hold elections but employ a number of tactics to control election outcomes. In response to unfairness of elections, opposition may organize negative campaign to persuade the electorate to vote against a regime candidate. The goal of this paper is to measure the...

Did the Prussian three-class franchise, which politically over-represented the economic elite, affect policy-making? Combining MP-level political orientation, derived from all roll call votes in the Prussian parliament (1867-1903), with constituency characteristics, we analyze how local vote...

I study the political consequences of state expropriation of agricultural land in rural China by using national individual-level panel data for the period 2010-2018. Comparing outcomes before and after expropriation with changes among individuals not experiencing expropriation, I find that...