Most political bargaining in the U.S. system has two features which are constitutionally mandated: (1) only one actor can make a formal proposal, and (2) he or she can make an indefinite number of proposals. Existing work in economics and political science ignores at least one of these features....

We explore the link between bankruptcy laws and entrepreneurship in the U.S states. Using two measures of entrepreneurship capturing alternative conceptions of this phenomenon, we find that bankruptcy laws more favorable to debtors lead to increased levels of self-employment in some cases,...