This analysis investigates a political corruption model that builds on previous literature on corruption in hierarchies. Our study enriches the literature on political corruption emphasizing the contrasting role of the minorities having a control role of the majorities. In particular, this paper...

The monopoly position of the public bureaucracy in providing public services allows government employees to acquire rents. Those rents can involve higher wages, monetary and non-monetary fringe benefits (e.g. pensions and staffing), and/or bribes. We propose a direct measure to capture the total...

We use high-quality panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant U.S. attorneys and relative public sector wages, and careful attention to the consequences of modeling endogeneity to estimate the impact of prosecutorial resources on criminal convictions of those who undertake...

A standard finding in the literature on political agency is that voters punish incumbents who raise taxes. Typically, only the reaction of a representative voter is considered, with the notion that all voters dislike high taxes because the revenue is, at least on the margin, spent on...

To explore the propagation of undesirable policies in a form of populist extremism, we construct a social learning model featuring agency problems. Politicians in different countries sequentially implement a policy. Voters learn the incumbent politician's type and the desirable policy by...

Ministry of Finance advisers play a crucial role in managing public finance matters, acting as a bridge between bureaucratic and political realms. This article aims to identify the essential skills and experiences that advisers must possess and how these professional qualities relate to their...

The nature of oil demand influences the oil extraction rate and hence has implications for both the timing of oil exhaustion and optimal climate policy. We analyse what role oil demand specification plays in strategic interactions b between an oil-importing country producing final goods and...

The increasing presence of the revolving door across several dimensions of statecraft has prompted the introduction of laws addressing the phenomenon's risks. Focusing on executive branches in charge of issuing and managing government debt - debt management units (DMUs) -, this article delivers...

Type-I and type-II errors effects do matter both from the rules enforcement perspective and vertically upward to rules enactment. The paper support conventional idea about detrimental influence on deterrence of both types of errors. At the same time special role of type-I errors is demonstrated...

We study peer effects in crime by analyzing co-offending networks. We first provide a credible estimate of peer effects in these networks equal to 0.17. This estimate implies a social multiplier of 1.2 for those individuals linked to only one co-offender and a social multiplier of 2 for those...