Replaced with revised version of paper 12/15/05.

We analyze a newly available dataset of migration policy decisions reported by governments to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs between 1976 and 2007. We find evidence indicating that most governments have policies aimed at either maintaining the status quo or at...

Political institutions matter for the incentives of politicians to implement economic reforms. This dissertation presents tools of analysis for understanding how political institutions constrain and shape the incentives of political decision-makers. Thus, it identifies reasons for why current...

We develop a model of legislative lobbying where policy proposals are endogenous. We show that a policy proposer with preferences tilted towards one lobby may be induced by an increase in that interest group's size to propose policies geared towards the opposing lobby. Hence, a larger lobby size...

This paper considers the status of economic reform in India, to understand which further reforms might be desirable, and why they have not been successfully introduced or implemented. Rather than provide a list of reforms that “should” be undertaken, the paper attempts to understand the...

While anecdotal evidence suggests that interest groups play a key role in shaping immigration policy, there is no systematic empirical analysis of this issue. In this paper, we construct an industry-level dataset for the United States, by combining information on the number of temporary work...

To understand the reasons for the formation of regional economic groupings two basic concepts are introduced: association and dissociation. Moreover, the importance of interest groups and strategic groups is discussed, and security and bargaining power as basic political motivations are...

In democratic societies individual attitudes of voters represent the foundations of policy making. We start by analyzing patterns in public opinion on migration and find that, across countries of different income levels, only a small minority of voters favour more open migration policies. Next...

Taking Macur Olson's theory of the decline of nations as pathbreaking in this field we develop a formal model of the behavior of interest groups and their interaction to win some deeper insights into the interior mechanics of the interest-group-state. Followed by a brief survey of empirical...

This paper describes private actors’ involvement in Colombia’s policymaking process. While more transparent and formal channels are used to discuss horizontal policies, they are also less effective. The adoption of targeted policies, however, follows a faster track and depends more on...