In cases where policy makers accept "bribes" offered by organised lobbies or interested parties, government decisions can be modelled as a first price menu auction. In this paper we adapt this structure to model debt repudiation. We consider a one-period model in which two generations, parents...

Regression results show that more unequal societies tend to spend comparatively more on higher levels of education. In a two-period model with heterogeneous agents, this paper investigates the political determinants of this bias. In the first period, public education is financed by the incumbent...

We develop a two period model to investigate what makes the promise to repay public debt credible. We explor a political solution excluding any role for long-run reputational arguments. There are two sources of heterogeneity among individuals: wealth and income. Differences in asset holdings...

The incidence of public expenditure in education appears to be skewed in favour of the middle and upper classes. This paper inquires into the determinants of this bias using a political economy approach. We develop a model with two time periods with an election occurring between the two. In the...

Empirical cross-country evidence suggests that countries position themselves along a sort of Market Regulation (MR)-Social Expenditure (SE) trade-off “line”. Theoretically, it is clear that there exists a certain degree of substitutability between SE and MR, since both can provide a cushion...