The issue of political integration between two countries (more generally two political constituencies) for economic reasons is studied within the context of a simple endogenous growth model with a productive public good financed by taxation. We consider two countries that initially differ in...

This paper studies the political support for social health insurance when a private alternative exists. Individuals differ only by their risk. For the more realistic distributions of risk, a majority of agents do not want public insurance. However, in a representative democracy, or in a direct...

This paper explores a two-candidate spatial voting model, where one candidate has a valence advantage. Contrary to previous models, we introduce a multiplicative advantage, rather than an additive one. This takes into account the possible interaction between the quality of a candidate and his...

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between inequality and the environment in a growing economy from a political-economy perspective. We consider an endogenous growth economy, where growth generates pollution and a deterioration of the environment. Public expenditures may either be...

Spatial models of voting have dominated mathematical political theory since the seminal work of Downs. The Downsian model assumes that each elector votes on the basis of his utility function which depends only on the distance between his preferred policy platform and the ones proposed by...

This paper explores a two-candidate spatial voting model, where one candidate has a valence advantage. Contrary to previous models, we introduce a multiplicative advantage, rather than an additive one. This takes into account the possible interaction between the quality of a candidate and his...