We show how an outside party offering incentives to voters can manipulate at no cost collective decisions made through voting. Under influence, these decisions can become inefficient. Therefore, the market for policies may be more likely to fail than the markets for goods, because (democratic)...

In order to help understand adherence to moral standards and the force of intrinsic motivation, we present an infinite-horizon model where an individual receives random temptations (such as bribe offers) and must decide which to resist. Temptations yield consumption value, but keeping a good...

We analyze a simple stochastic environment in which policy makers can be threatened by "nasty" interest groups. In the absence of these groups, the policy maker's desire for reelection guarantees that good policies are implemented for every realization of the shock. When pressure groups can...