If a government has ability and willingness to redistribute the surplus created by an external investor, why do we still observe resistance to such investment, sometimes in the form of destruction of productive assets? And how does such destructive action affect a government's...

We study a political competition between two groups, where the winner has the decision rights to allocate resources, like political parties deciding on sharing of patronage goods. What factors determine how resources are shared? We highlight an important force that affects distribution of...

I examine the choice of political rhetoric when one candidate's willingness to misinform the voter is checked by the other's ability to inform. In the basic model, a debate is a competition between two candidates in which the "good" candidate wants to reveal information about quality and the...

We study the role of inter-group differences in the emergence of conflict. In our setting, society comprises two groups who compete in every period for political power, i.e. the right to allocate economic resources between the groups. Individuals can move from one group to another at a cost:...

In developing countries with weak enforcement institutions, there is implicitly a large reliance on electoral incentives to reduce corruption. In this paper we study the effect of electoral competition on corruption when uncertainty in elections is high, as in many developing countries. Our...

In this paper we study the effect of electoral competition on corruption. Our theory shows that when electoral uncertainty is high, as is expected in many developing countries, there is a U-shaped relationship between electoral competition and corruption. We illustrate the predictions of the...

Poor communities sometimes resist private investment and destroy economic surplus even if the government has the willingness and ability to redistribute. We interpret such acts of resistance as demands for redistribution: Destruction contains credible information about how the affected group...