This paper studies the political economy of cordon tolls in a monocentric city consisting of three zones: center, mid-city and suburbs. The cordon toll may give rise to several interrelated conflicts: between residents within and outside the cordon, between car and public transport users,...

To enforce regulations, governments often delegate power to public officials. However, officials may have incentives to abuse their discretionary power and engage in bribery or extortion. Efforts to monitor and curb such abuses have inspired interest in using new communication technologies to...

Ownership takeovers often follow complex strategies where the control of the target firm is acquired through a sequence of independent contracts. Based on this observation, we develop a novel theoretical model wherein the acquiring firm decides on the number of steps towards the full ownership...

This paper argues that self-reporting schemes whereby citizens report their noncompliance with regulation can prevent corruption in administrations. In our model, entrepreneurs must comply with regulation before undertaking a risky activity. Officials verify compliance before granting permits,...

We investigate the relation between Net Neutrality regulation and Internet fragmentation. We model a two-sided market, where Content Providers (CPs) and consumers interact through Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and CPs sell consumers' attention to advertisers. Under Net Neutrality, a...

We develop a spatial equilibrium model to study the political economy of pricing downtown parking space when special interest groups (retailers, local residents) lobby the city government. Parking fees penalize downtown retailers, but benefit suburban stores that provide free parking. We show...

A large share of the ads displayed by digital publishers (e.g., newspapers and blogs) are sold via intermediaries (e.g., Google), that have large market power and reportedly allocate the ads in an opaque way. We study the incentives of an intermediary to disclose consumer information to...