"In this paper we address the following question: To what extent is the hypothesis that voters vote sincerely testable or falsifiable? We show that using data only on how individuals vote in a single election, the hypothesis that voters vote sincerely is irrefutable, regardless of the number of...

We study a sender's optimal choice of precision when he selects from a class of random signals to persuade a receiver to accept his request, with higher costs associated with higher precision. The receiver observes both the precision and a random realization of the signal. We characterize...

Is increasing political competition good for voters? We study this question in the political career concerns framework. Our results show that the relationship between political competition, viewed as the cost of challenging incumbent politicians, and the politicians' incentive to behave in the...

We analyze a psychologically-based model of voter turnout in an election with common value and uncertainty. Our model yields distinctive comparative statics results. First, an increase in the proportion of informed citizens may cause the winning margin for the right candidate to either rise or...

We analyze a psychologically-based model of voter turnout in an election with common value and uncertainty. Our model yields distinctive comparative statics results. First, an increase in the proportion of informed citizens may cause the winning margin for the right candidate to either rise or...

In this paper we present a structural approach to the study of government formation in multi-party parliamentary democracies. The approach is based on the estimation of a stochastic bargaining model which we use to investigate the effects of specific institutional features of parliamentary...