This paper argues for the central role of risk aversion in shaping political ideology. We develop a political economy model, which makes explicit the link between risk aversion, the labor market, government policy, and ideology. Our model distinguishes the effects of risk aversion from...

This paper argues for the central role of risk aversion in shaping political ideology. We develop a political economy model, which makes explicit the link between risk aversion, the labor market, government policy, and ideology. Our model distinguishes the effects of risk aversion from...

Should legal rules be used to redistribute income? Or should income taxation be the exclusive means for reducing income inequality? This article reviews the legal scholarship on this question. First, it traces how the most widely-cited argument in favor of using taxes exclusively — Kaplow &...

Why do corporate governance law and practice differ across countries? This paper explains how wage-setting institutions influence ownership structures and investor protection laws. In particular, we identify a nonmonotonic relationship between the level of centralization in wage-bargaining...

Why do states fail? Why do failed states persist without collapsing into complete anarchy? This paper argues that given insurgency or weakened state capacity, rulers may find it best, paradoxically, to reduce the amount of political good it provides as a means of sustaining some amount of their...

In spite of the increasing popularity of comparative work on other-regarding preferences, the theoretical implications of different models of altruism are not always fully understood. This paper explores different theoretical approaches to altruism and elucidates their implications, paying...

Should legal rules be used to redistribute income? Or should income taxation be the exclusive means for reducing income inequality? This article reviews the legal scholarship on this question. First, it traces how the most widely cited argument in favor of using taxes exclusively—Kaplow &...