This paper investigates the determinants of political polarization, a phenomenon of increasing relevance in Western democracies. How much of polarization is driven by divergence in the ideologies of politicians? How much is instead the result of changes in the capacity of parties to control...

The current polarization of elites in the U.S., particularly in Congress, is frequently ascribed to the emergence of cohorts of ideologically extreme legislators replacing moderate ones. Politicians, however, do not operate as isolated agents, driven solely by their preferences. They act within...

This paper investigates the determinants of political polarization, a phenomenon of increasing relevance in Western democracies. How much of polarization is driven by divergence in the ideologies of politicians? How much is instead the result of changes in the capacity of parties to control...

This paper investigates the determinants of political polarization, a phenomenon of increasing relevance in Western democracies. How much of polarization is driven by divergence in the ideologies of politicians? How much is instead the result of changes in the capacity of parties to control...

ABSTRACT. This paper studies when and why firms prefer more direct forms of state capture (i.e using state officials) to more indirect ones (i.e., using elected officials, to influence bureaucrats). First, we propose a principalagent model under political uncertainty. Firms can induce market...

This paper presents and structurally estimates a model of endogenous network formation and legislative activity of career-motivated politicians. Employing data on socialization and legislative effort of members of the 105th-110th U.S. Congresses, our model reconciles a set of empirical...

Surveys, polling data and media reports indicate that voters often choose who to vote for at different stages in the political campaign: some voters know from start of a campaign who they will vote for, while others decide on the last day. This dispersion of the timing of voting decisions can...