Competitive elections create a relationship of formal accountability between policy makers
and citizens. Recent theoretical work suggests that there are limits on how well this formal …

An important empirical literature evaluates whether voters are rational by examining how
electoral outcomes respond to events outside the control of politicians, such as natural …

A long research tradition in behavioral political science evaluates the performance of
democracy by examining voter competence. This literature got its start arguing that voters' …

Formal Models of Domestic Politics offers a unified and accessible approach to canonical
and important new models of politics. Intended for political science and economics students …

Elections are thought to improve voter welfare through two channels: effective accountability
(ie, providing incentives for politicians to take costly effort) and electoral selection (ie …

We study the limits of dynamic electoral accountability when voters are uncertain about
politicians' characteristics (adverse selection) and their actions (moral hazard). Existing work …

Why is an understanding of political competition essential for the study of public economics
and public policy generally? How can political competition be described and understood …

We analyze a model of moral hazard in local public services, which could be efficiently
managed by officials under local democratic accountability, but not by officials who are …

This paper studies how citizen-initiated referenda affect the decision-making of elected
representatives. In the absence of direct democracy, elected officials who do not share the …

I explore the incentives under alternative electoral institutions for national politicians to
efficiently provide local public goods. Using a career-concerns models which incorporates …