We present a model of political selection in which voters elect a president from a set of candidates. We assume that some of the candidates are benevolent and that all voters prefer a benevolent president, i.e. a president who serves the public interest. Yet, political selection may fail in our...

This paper proposes an agenda for the study of the determinants and the processes by which strong policymaking institutions emerge, with emphasis on the most central democratic institution: the legislature. It reviews extant theories of institutionalization, and proposes further ways of...

Although the application of the conceptual and analytical framework of economics to the study of populism is still in its infancy, great advances have been made in recent years. This paper reviews some key contributions behind this progress. When analyzing populism, economists face two...

This paper uses the unique social structure of Arab communities to examine the effect of social identity on voter turnout. We first show that voters are more likely to vote for a candidate who shares their social group (signified by last name) as compared to other candidates. Using last name as...

For the first time in U.S. history, approximately 10 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives is Hispanic. The greater engagement of Hispanics in national politics has occurred after unprecedented growth in interior immigration enforcement disproportionately impacting Latinos. Using...

Does exposure to crises reduce the citizens' trust in a country's president? Are individuals willing to accept fiscal reforms and make personal economic sacrifices if it would help the country to leave the crisis faster? We take advantage of two survey panels in Argentina and Uruguay, with a...

In the last decade, social media and the Internet have amplified the possibility to spread false information, a.k.a. fake news, which has become a serious threat to the credibility of politicians, organizations, and other decision makers. This paper proposes a framework for investigating the...

Elections define representative democracies, but also produce spikes in physical mobility if voters need to travel to electoral rooms. In this paper, we examine whether large-scale, in-person elections propagate the spread of COVID-19. We exploit a natural experiment from the Czech Republic...

In most countries Parliamentary immunity protects lawmakers from civil or criminal charges while in office, and it shields them from prosecution for their political speech or political actions. This paper presents the first empirical analysis in the literature of the impact of Parliamentary...

We present a model of political selection in which voters elect a president from a set of candidates. We assume that some of the candidates are benevolent and that all voters prefer a benevolent president, i.e. a president who serves the public interest. Yet, political selection may fail in our...