This paper asks whether the results obtained from using the standard approach to testing the influential Grossman and Helpman %u201Cprotection for sale (PFS)%u201D model of political economy might arise from a simpler setting. A model of imports and quotas with protection occurring in response...

We study equilibrium in a multistage race in which players compete in a sequence of simultaneous move component contests. Players may win a prize for winning each component contest, as well as a prize for winning the overall race. Each component contest is an all-pay auction with complete...

Lobbyists choose what to lobby for. If they can precommit to certain policy proposals, their choice will have an influence on the behavior of opposing lobbyists. Hence lobbyists have an incentive to moderate their policy proposals in order to reduce the intensity of the lobbying contest. This...

In this paper, a formal rent-seeking theory of the firm is developed. The main idea is that integration (compared to non-integration) facilitates rent-seeking for the integrating party, but makes it harder for the integrated one. In a one-period model, this implies that the rent-seeking contest...

We characterize the unique Markov perfect equilibrium of a tug-of-war without exogenous noise, in which players have the opportunity to engage in a sequence of battles in an attempt to win the war. Each battle is an all-pay auction in which the player expending the greater resources wins. In...

We consider the properties of perfectly discriminating contests in which players’ abilities are stochastic, but become common knowledge before efforts are expended. Players whose expected ability is lower than that of their rivals may still earn a positive expected payoff from participating in...

In this paper I will analyse the redistribution of income amongst n generations using the Single-mindedness Theory. I will introduce a new expression for the balanced-budget constraint, no longer based on lump- sum transfers as in the traditional literature, but rather on more realistic labour...

In this paper, we construct a political-economy model of international noncooperative environmental policymaking, and examine the strategic incentives for voters to elect an environmental policymaker in open economies. We show that under several circumstances, citizens have an incentive to...

The goal of this paper is to explore how the connection between political ideology and voters’ preferences is able to generate different equilibria in a yardstick competition game, where good incumbents are forced to create a bad reputation or, in other words, to mimic the bad incumbents’...

I analyse a yardstick competition game using a spatial voting model, where voters vote for a candidate according to the distance between their Ideal Point and the policy selected by a candidate. The policy which is closest to a voter’s IP provides the voter with a higher utility so that...