Does redistribution in democracies cater to the will of the majority? We propose and apply a simple empirical strategy based on survey data to address that longstanding issue. Differently from previous evaluations of the median-voter theory, ours does not assume that voters are guided by...

The neoclassical way to cope with firms providing services, or with clubs procuring services, is restricted by the lack of institutional features. An institutional approach is introduced that requires a cooperative governance to realize the potential value-production by firms, or to realize the...

Cooperative behavior as well as other cultural rules and values are made explicit in organizational units that procure and provide a common service. The common service is procured by a club, which consists of a user-value function, a representation governance, and a budget-allocation function....

This paper studies how society votes on the payroll taxes of a basic income and a social health insurance scheme. Individuals differ along the two most important dimensions when it comes to the design of the two welfare schemes, namely, income and risk. Even though the introduction of a basic...

We study the opportunistic political budget cycle in the London Metropolitan Boroughs between 1902 and 1937 under two different suffrage regimes: taxpayer suffrage (1902-1914) and universal suffrage (1921-1937). We argue and find supporting evidence that the political budget cycle operates...

This paper characterizes a unique mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in a one-dimensional Downsian model of two-candidate elections with a continuous policy space, where candidates are office motivated and one candidate enjoys a non-policy advantage over the other candidate. We show that if...

The paper inquires why in some countries traditionally ruled by absolute monarchs the monarchy survived in the form of constitutional monarchy but not in others. It considers constitutional monarchy as a negotiated settlement between the king and a liberal opposition to share office rents, while...

Most moral justifications for coercion have been based on one of two arguments: the consent of the coerced, usually understood as univariate and discrete, or the beneficial consequences of coercion; but many cases do not fit these categories. This paper proposes that consent be understood as our...

Under what conditions is service provision by donors and nonstate actors likely to undermine or strengthen citizensÕ legitimating beliefs? A new study assesses associations between donor and nonstate actor service provision and the sense of obligation that these associations produce for...