We assess the influence of moneyed interests on legislative decisions. Our theory predicts that the vote outcome distribution and donation flows in a legislature feature a discontinuity at the approval threshold of bills if special interest groups are involved in vote buying. Testing the...

When voters’ trust in politicians collapses, they demand simple policies that they can easily monitor. Disenchanted citizens therefore prefer committed delegates to politicians who propose themselves as competent policy makers but without a specific policy commitment (trustees). In a two-party...

Overall growth rates mean different things to different people. Hence, they can easily misrepresent what happens to living standards and "quality of life". This paper focuses on patterns and interrelationships between the size and the distribution of the dividends of growth, not on summary...