This paper critically analyzes voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Using survey data from the American National Election Survey and aggregate data on Congressional districts, it assesses the roles that economic and social factors played in Donald J. Trump's “Populist”...

Voters punish incumbent Presidential candidates for contractions in the local (county-level) supply of mortgage credit during market-wide contractions of credit, but they do not reward them for expansions in mortgage credit supply in boom times. Our primary focus is the Presidential election of...

This paper analyzes the 2020 election, focusing on voters, not political money, and emphasizing the importance of economic geography. Drawing extensively on county election returns, it analyzes how spatial factors combined with industrial structures to shape the outcome. It treats COVID 19’s...

This study examines the effect of regulatory independence of the central bank in shaping the impact of electoral cycles on bank lending behaviour in Africa. It employs the dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) Two-Step estimator for a panel dataset of 54 African countries over the...

The U.S. presidential election of 2016 featured frontal challenges to the political establishments of both parties and perhaps the most shocking election upset in American history. This paper analyzes patterns of industrial structure and party competition in both the major party primaries and...

This paper shows empirically that the choice between auction and grandfathering for the distribution of pollution permits is not neutral in presence of political market failures as it motivates rent-seeking. We model the distribution of free permits in the US sulfur emissions trading system as...

We study which policy tool and at what level a majority chooses in order to reduce activities with negative externalities. We consider three instruments: a rule, that sets an upper limit to the activity which produces the negative externality, a quota that forces a proportional reduction of the...

An adversarial game is used to model a firm's intrinsic and exerted influence over a regulator. Data from the World Business Environment Survey provide strong evidence in support of model hypotheses across a wide range of government agents, countries, and regulatory areas. Of particular...

Hybrid governance structures between markets and hierarchies in many industries, e.g., in energy and telecommunications, challenge antitrust and regulation policy. The paper focuses on the theoretical and methodological basis provided by the New Institutional Economics (NIE) for analyzing the...

I discuss the motivations and actions (or inaction) of individuals in the financial system, governments, central banks, academia and the media that collectively contribute to the persistence of a dangerous and distorted financial system and inadequate, poorly designed regulations. Reassurances...