We investigate the welfare effects of policies that increase voter turnout in costly voting models. In a generalized costly voting model, we show that if the electorate is sufficiently large, then increasing voter turnout is generically efficient. Increasing turnout in small elections is only...

Candidates for U.S. presidential elections are determined through sequential elections in single states, the primaries. We develop a model in which candidates can influence their winning probability in electoral districts by spending money on campaigning. The equilibrium replicates several...

In many important political problems, citizens can directly participate in the political decision making through a referendum. These settings are often characterized by uncertainty over the future consequences of the decision, the possibility of learning about these over time, and the...

We consider a society that has to elect an official who provides a public service for the citizens. Potential candidates differ in their competence and every potential candidate has private information about his opportunity cost to perform the task of the elected official. We develop a new...

Civilian targets of terrorist or criminal attacks (e.g., sport stadiums, chemical or nuclear industry; infrastructure such as ports or pipelines) are often owned by the private agents who choose how to guard against potential attacks. This creates an important externality problem, as some of the...

When candidates in primary elections are ideologically differentiated (e.g., conservatives and moderates in the Republican party), then candidates with similar positions affect each others' vote shares more strongly than candidates with different ideological positions. We measure this effect in...

One of the most widely discussed phenomena in American politics today is the perceived increasing partisan divide that splits the U.S. electorate. A central contested question is whether this diagnosis is actually true, and if so, what is the underlying cause. We develop a model that relates the...

We introduce a framework of electoral competition in which voters have general preferences over candidates’ characteristics and policies. Candidates’ immutable characteristics (such as gender, race or previously committed policy positions) are exogenously differentiated, while candidates can...