This paper analyses a model of electoral competition with lobbying, where candidates hold private information about their willingness to pander to lobbies, if elected. I show that this uncertainty induces risk-averse voters to choose candidates who implement policies biased in favor of the...

We present a citizen-candidate model on a multidimensional policy space with lobbying, where citizens regard some issues more salient than others. We find that special interest groups that lobby on less salient topics move the implemented policy closer to their preferred policy, compared to the...

We model a society that values the coherence between past policy platforms and current implemented policy, and where policy platforms partially commit candidates to their future actions. If an incumbent politician seeks to be reelected, she has to use her platforms to commit to moderate policies...

This paper considers electoral behavior and institutional capture when voters choose between a populist and non-populist politician. Populist politicians provide voters with a utility boom followed by a subsequent bust, as in Dornbusch and Edwards (The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin...