Recent formal models of accountability allow us to make different conditional predictions about how transparency affects voters’ willingness to re-elect incumbents and acceptance of higher taxes. We review two models and investigate empirical implications derived from or related to them,...

Previous research into endogenous trade policy has described extensively the political incentives of firms with specific assets, but no studies have shown directly that firms behave as predicted. We adopt insights from transaction costs economics to develop measures of asset specificity and to...

We investigate the effects of fiscal transparency and political polarization on the prevalence of electoral cycles in fiscal balance. The recent political economy literature on electoral cycles identifies such cycles mainly in weak and recent democracies. In contrast, we show, conditioning on a...

This paper investigates the effects of checks and balances on corruption. Within a presidential system, effective separation of powers is achieved under a divided government, with the executive and legislative branches being controlled by different political parties. When government is unified,...

We use high-quality panel data on corruption convictions, new panels of assistant U.S. attorneys and relative public sector wages, and careful attention to the consequences of modeling endogeneity to estimate the impact of prosecutorial resources on criminal convictions of those who undertake...