A major contribution of the public-choice school is the recognition by Gordon Tullock that contestable rents give rise to social losses because of unproductive resource use. Contestable rents usually are politically assigned privileges. Contestable rents can also be found outside of government...

The social contract of the welfare state can be strained by the arrival of immigrants who receive welfare payments financed by citizens? taxes. We show, however, that the presence of unemployed immigrants receiving welfare payments is consistent with social harmony. The social harmony, which is...

In a remarkably simple and yet in one of the most original and insightful observations of 20th century economics, Gordon Tullock observed that there are efficiency losses when public policies and political behavior create contestable rents. Tullock also observed that social losses from...

The Goldstone Report is unique among United Nations reports in having been eventually repudiated by its principal author. The Report criminalized self-defense against state-sponsored or state-perpetrated terror. We use voting on the two UN General Assembly resolutions relating to the Goldstone...

Group-based identity undermines democracy by impeding democratic change of government. A substantial literature has therefore studied how to make democracy consistent with group identity. We contribute to this literature by introducing the role of group decisiveness into voting incentives and...

Immigration policies in western democracies have often been contrary to the policies predicted by the mainstream theory of international economics. In particular, political parties that, according to economic theory, should adopt policies beneficial for lower-income voter-constituencies, have...

This paper examines the relation between the multinational firm and the determination of international trade policy. At issue is whether the multinational firm exerts a protectionist or liberalizing influence on countries' national trade policies. Vertical integration appears quite...

Protectionist industry interests stem from nondiversified individual income which derives from industry-specific factor ownership. This paper investigates how access to domestic and international asset markets moderates industry-affiliated individuals' preferences for protectionist trade...

We compiled data on all United Nations General Assembly resolutions on which voting took place between January 1990 and June 2013 and find a preoccupation with one country: in 65 percent of instances in which a country is criticized in a resolution, the country is Israel, with no other country...

The United Nations Goldstone Report criminalized self-defense against state-sponsored or state-perpetrated terror. We use voting on the two UN General Assembly resolutions relating to the Goldstone Report to study whether support for the Goldstone principle of criminalization of self-defense...