We develop two models in this paper to investigate the social welfare implication of the number and size of interest groups. The first model analyzes the case in which individuals in each group ignore the effect of the lobbying effect on the size of the aggregate output of the economy. It is...

We examine the incentives for integration between two nations of different sizes in a set up similar to Alesina and Spolaore (2003): individuals are indexed by location, each nation (comprising of individuals) is an interval, and the public good in each nation is provided from its capital -...

Spanish Abstract: Este artículo examina los determinantes de la corrupción en los estados mexicanos mediante un modelo de datos de panel que incluye factores económicos y políticos. Los resultados indican que el nivel de ingreso tiene una relación positiva y la alternación de los partidos...

Public choice theory (PCT) has had a powerful influence on political science and, to a lesser extent, on public administration. Based on the premise that public officials are rational maximizers of their own utility, PCT has a quite successful record of correctly predicting governmental...

We present a model of electoral accountability to compare the public finance outcomes under a presidential-congressional and a parliamentary system. In a presidential-congressional system, contrary to a parliamentary system, there are no endogenous incentives for legislative cohesion, but this...

The possibility of treason by a close associate has been a nightmare of most autocrats throughout history. More competent viziers are better able to discriminate among potential plotters, and this makes them more risky subordinates for the ruler. To avoid this, rulers, especially those which are...

The President of the United States is chosen directly by the Electoral College, although indirectly the citizens select the President. Different states currently employ two systems of electoral-vote allocation under the Electoral College framework: the widely adopted winner-take-all system and...

Recent studies in psychology and neuroscience offer systematic evidence that fictional works exert a surprisingly strong influence on readers and have the power to shape their opinions and worldviews. Building on these findings, we study ‘Potterian economics’, the economic ideas, insights,...

Recent studies in psychology and neuroscience offer systematic evidence that fictional works exert a surprisingly strong influence on readers and have the power to shape their opinions and worldviews. Building on these findings, we study 'Potterian economics', the economic ideas, insights, and...

A very important, yet unsettled, question is whether mandatory voting affects political participation. This paper exploits a natural experiment to assess the causal impact of compulsory voting on turnout and, more importantly, to test whether the impact is different across skill groups. I find...