This paper analyzes how population aging affects immigration policy in rich industrialized countries. It sets up a two-period model of a representative democracy with two overlapping generations. The government's preferred immigration rate increases with the share of retirees in the population....

In the face of rising old-age dependency ratios in industrialized countries like Germany, politicians and their electorates discuss the loosening of immigration policies as one policy option to ensure the sustainability of public social security systems. The question arises whether this policy...

The role and influence of the finance minister within the cabinet are discussed with increasing prominence in the recent theoretical literature on the political economy of budget deficits. It is generally assumed that the spending ministers can raise their reputation purely with new or more...

Following the notion of skill-biased FDI fl ows from developed to less developed regions, high-skilled workers are likely to benefit from FDI to a larger extent. They earn a productivity advantage that potentially transfers into a skilled wage premium. This gives rise to distributional conflict...

We investigate the effect of population aging on international factor flows in a political-economy framework. Political barriers to immigration in developed countries and insecure property rights in developing countries impede factor flows. Taking into account different generations' conflicting...

Personal freedom is highly valued by many and a central element of liberal political philosophy. Although personal freedom is frequently associated with electoral democracy, developments in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Russia, where elected populist leaders with authoritarian...

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...

We study the political economy of instrument choice in agricultural and food policies. After a review of the historical evolution of European agricultural price and trade policy instruments since 1880, we develop a political economy model of instrument choice. The key predictions of the model...

This paper evaluates Kenya's food price crisis over 2002 - 11 using a political economy approach. Kenya's food prices have been high and volatile relative to world food prices. Moreover, domestic food markets are highly integrated while about 30 per cent of the changes in world market prices are...