We design the class of (indirect) Approval mechanisms which allow the players' strategies to coincide with the subsets of the outcome space. By focusing on the single-peaked domain, we prove that: a) Each of these mechanisms is characterized by a unique equilibrium outcome, and b) for almost...

In the single-peaked domain, the median rules (Moulin, 1980) are of special interest. They are, essentially, the unique strategy-proof rules as well as the unique Nash implementable ones under complete information. We show that, under mild assumptions on admissible priors, they are also...

This paper shows that electoral incentives affect the occurrence of trade disputes. Focusing on WTO disputes filed by the United States during the 1995-2012 period, we show that U.S. presidents are more likely to initiate a dispute in the year preceding their re-election date. Moreover, disputes...

Recent contributions to the political economics literature (Trebbi et al. 2007; Aghion et al. 2004) have challenged the view that political institutions are exogenous to the behavior of agents in the political arena. We explicitly address the potential endogeneity of institutions by examining the...

Recent contributions to the political economics literature (Trebbi et al. 2007; Aghion et al. 2004) have challenged the view that political institutions are exogenous to the behaviour of agents in the political arena. We explicitly address the potential endogeneity of institutions by examining the...

We measure where and to what end parties take control of Congressional redistricting, which lets them redraw districts to favor their own candidates. We exploit the discontinuous change in a party's control of redistricting triggered when its share of seats in the state legislature exceeds 50...

Dictatorship has been one of the most persistent regime types in history. Different dictators have applied different strategies for obtaining political support in different societies. We discuss and empirically estimate the hypothesis that states that dictators rely more on military for...

This paper investigates pork-barrel spending, the inefficient effect of legislature size on public spending, in at-large electoral systems. Using a rich panel data set on German municipalities whose councils are elected at-large, we employ a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal...

In this paper, we seek to identify the causes of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We note that the importance of the question of redistribution was relatively minor when compared to the salience attached to issues of self-governance and autonomy of the numerous ethnic groups...