In a representative democracy politicians should either implement policies that voters want or policies that politicians believe are in voters long-term interest, even if voters currently oppose them. While the exact balance between these goals is debatable, politicians can also have strong...

Normative theories of representative democracy imply that politicians should be better informed of the consequences of a policy than ordinary voters. However, in real life, politicians can have strong convictions that risk blinding them to arguments against their positions. Policy engagement can...

In a representative democracy politicians should either implement policies that voters want or policies that politicians believe are in voters long-term interest, even if voters currently oppose them. While the exact balance between these goals is debatable, politicians can also have strong...

Observing legislator's voting behavior plays a crucial role in the parliamentary process, both in terms of representation and in terms of accountability. When a MP votes either for or against a proposal, and so for or against his party' s policy line, this action can be observed by both voters...

We study the heterogeneity of family firms using registry data on all private firms in Sweden. We restrict our sample to firms with at least one employee, and we define a family firm as a firm where two or more individuals among the owners or the board of directors are related. We focus on the...

Populist parties have grown rapidly in popularity in most European countries, and are increasingly common in government coalitions. Analyzing 183 populist parties in 33 European countries from 1980 to 2021, we estimate the average effect of being in government on election results. On average, we...

Within the field of innovation studies, researchers have identified several market failures that hamper investment in R&D, innovation and growth in a market economy. Several policies such as government subsidies, tax deductions, soft loans, and public venture capital provided to firms that...

We study competition between political parties in repeated elections with probabilistic voting, allowing a multidimensional policy space and multiple political parties. This model entails multiple equilibria. When parties hold different opinions on some policy, they may take different policy...