The type of the mainstay of the military forces of a state decides the decree of economies of scope that exist among the military, the internal security establishment and, the fiscal apparatus which taxes and provides public goods. Economies of scope reduce the cost of military pursuit and other...

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...

Is the United States sufficiently democratic? And does it provide sufficient protection for the thriving markets that have sustained American prosperity? The answers are not obvious because these two values conflict. Many democratic theorists argue that the Constitution is not democratic because...

This paper contributes to the debate over the unity in Smith's corpus by emphasizing Smith's pervasive methodological approach based on an assumption of self-interest. Specifically, Smith consistently relies on equilibrium arguments to explain why a given pattern of economic, political, or...

Elected President by 53% of the French people, the 51-year-old politician, M. Nicolas Sarkozy, has pulled off a major triumph in uniting his camp behind him, but now faces the greater task of unifying the nation, as his mentor Charles de Gaulle succeeded to do by times of big challenges. This is...

Do foreign educated individuals play a role in promoting democracy in their home country? Despite the large amount of private and public resources spent on foreign education, there is no systematic evidence that foreign educated individuals foster democracy in their home countries. Using a...

This paper develops a political economy model that provides an explanation as for why ruling elites in oligarchic societies may rely on income redistribution to the poor (the masses) in order to prevent them from attempting a revolution. We refer to this kind of redistribution as populist...

Property rights, whose security is often threatened by terrorism and civil conflict, are a necessary condition for the establishment of a market economy. Yet a fundamental and unresolved empirical question is whether the lack of political and civil freedoms is one of the root causes of greater...

Property rights, whose security is often threatened by civil conflict, are a necessary condition for the establishment of a market economy. Yet a fundamental and unresolved empirical question is whether the lack of political and civil freedoms is one of the root causes of greater insecurity....

Public sector unions operate in politically challenging environments. Recent limitations on collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and attempts to curtail collective bargaining in Ohio are illustrative of union vulnerability to shifts in the political climate. In Wisconsin, only months after...