undermined trust in politicians, the media, the EU and social welfare spending financed by taxes. This is mainly due to economic …

empirical evidence shows that bad but dedicated politicians come along with good but not fully committed politicians. There is …

This paper deals with the impact of electoral competition on politicians' outside earnings. In our framework …, politicians face a tradeoff between allocating their time to political effort or to an alternative use generating outside earnings … that politicians facing low competition have substantially higher outside earnings. -- Political competition ; outside …

The wage paid to politicians affects both the choice of citizens to run for an elective office and the performance of … sector, an increase in politicians' pay may change their mind. Second, if the reelection prospects of incumbents depend on … performance. Our results show that a higher wage attracts more educated candidates, and that better paid politicians size down the …

As the performance of long-term projects is not observable in the short run politicians may pander to public opinion … to stand for reelection. Reelection thresholds are offered by politicians during campaigns. We show that, on balance, the …

collusion between media and politicians change if two pieces of information about the politician are available: media … honest politicians from dishonest ones more often than if they were relying on media information only; ii) collusion is … citizens. -- Mass Media ; Corruption ; Selection and Discipline of Politicians …