We bring together opposing international relations theories to better understand American foreign policy, in particular foreign trade and aid. Using votes in the US House of Representatives from 1979-2004, we explore different theoretical predictions about preferences for foreign economic...

Over the past fifty years, barriers to international trade have decreased substantially. While the decline in protectionism since World War II has stemmed partly from unilateral changes in trade policy by countries, it also has been a result of agreements among countries to liberalize their...

What factors have promoted and retarded the spread of the internet globally? Much as other technologies, the internet has diffused unevenly across countries. The main proposition is that its spread is neither purely economic nor entirely domestic. International diffusion pressures exert a...

A growing body of research suggests that democracy promotes trade liberalization in developing countries. We argue that democracy in developing countries generates a "skill bias" in trade policy where democratic incumbents have incentives to increase tariffs on high skilled goods but reduce...

What explains the variation in trade policy among democracies in developing countries? Why have some liberalized trade more than others? We analyze the impact of political particularism – defined as the degree of party discipline and the incentives for politicians to cultivate a personal vote...

International institutions that include an escape clause generate more durable and stable cooperative international regimes, and are easier to achieve ex ante. The escape clause is endogenous in a model of repeated trade-barrier setting in the presence of symmetric, two-sided, political...

Why do some countries, cities, firms, and individuals curtail emissions that cause climate change while others continue to pollute? Prevailing explanations focused on collective action and distributive politics assume all actors face costs from global warming; yet this is at odds with research...

International institutions that include an escape clause generate more durable and stable cooperative international regimes, and are easier to achieve ex ante. The escape clause is endogenous in a model of repeated trade-barrier setting in the presence of symmetric, two-sided, political...