This paper argues that uncertain or random voter turnout plays a key role in mediating conflicts of interest between voters and politicians on the one hand and heterogenous groups of voters on the other. Random voter turnout creates an incentive for politicians to seek con- sensus because it is...

Does local democracy help or hinder the solution of collective action problems? We study this question in the context of public spending on health-related urban amenities in a panel of 75 municipal boroughs in England and Wales in 1868, 1871 and 1886. We .nd evidence of a U-shaped relationship...

This paper addresses the effects of multimarket contact on firms’ ability to collude. Real world imperfections tend to makes firms’ objective function strictly concave and market supergames ‘interdependent’: firms’ payoffs in each market depend on how they are doing in others. Then,...

In the analysis of China's industrial reforms attention has focused on the declining role of the state sector. However, the emergence of the fast-growing market economy in China since the late 1970s has provided opportunities for traditional large plants to grow into more complex big businesses,...

Liberalisation has had a marked effect on innovative activities in the electricity industry. R&D and patenting activities are generally regarded respectively as innovative inputs to and outputs from technological progress. Electricity reforms have resulted in a reduction in R&D spending in the...