How does ideological polarization on non-economic matters influence the size of government? We analyze this question using a differentiated candidates framework: Two office-motivated candidates differ in their (fixed) ideological position and their production function for public goods, and...

We suggest a probabilistic voting model where voters' preferences for alternative public goods display habit formation. Current policies determine habit levels and in turn the future preferences of the voters. This allows the incumbent to act strategically in order to influence the probability...

We study lobbying in a setting in which decision-makers share resources in a network. Two opposing interest groups choose which decision-maker they want to target with their resource provision, and their decision depends on the decision-makers' ideologies as well as the network structure. We...

Why do groups of even well-educated individuals sometimes persistently believe in political myths and ideologies? We follow cognition psychology in its finding that individuals sometimes stick with intuitive but false propositions. We also follow Kahneman, however, in maintaining that they...

We suggest a probabilistic voting model where voters’ preferences for alternative public goods display habit formation. Current policies determine habit levels and in turn the future preferences of the voters. This allows the incumbent to act strategically in order to influence the probability...

How can office-seeking politicians or managers be aligned with social welfare or firm welfare, given that such agents have a suboptimal incentive to cater to majority preferences in situations with low participation costs and to elite preferences in situations with high participation costs? In...

We use the citizen-candidate model to study electoral outcomes under the Alternative Vote rule, a voting method often proposed as a replacement to the prevalent Plurality rule. We show that, like the Plurality rule, the Alternative Vote rule deters multiple candidate clusters and the presence of...