Catholics in Public Life: Judges, Legislators, and Voters

Immigration, Public Pensions, and Heterogenous Voters Immigration, Public Pensions, and Heterogenous Voters

Depending on the design of the domestic pension system and the type of immigrants, voters will decide differently on immigration policy. In this paper, we investigate the voting outcome of three groups of heterogenous voters (skilled workers, unskilled workers, and retirees) under Beveridgian or Bismarckian pension systems which are either of the fixed contribution rate or the fixed replacement...

Can Voters be Primed to Choose Better Legislators? Experimental Evidence from Rural India

Ethnic politics and political corruption are important concerns in many developing country democracies. We conducted field experiments in rural India to examine the responsiveness of voter preferences to priming about the relevance of ethnicity and politician quality for service delivery. We used vignette experiments to examine how voter preferences vary with information about politician qualit...

Why Voters May Prefer Congested Public Clubs

Governmental facilities for such services as education, health, and transportation are often small, of poor quality, and overcrowded, even when the costs are spread among all taxpayers. We also find that governments may subsidize private facilities providing the same services, or may charge admission fees at public facilities. We explain these phenomena with a model which considers two types of...

Predictors of Canadian legislators' support for public health policy interventions.

Directing Retribution: Ex Ante versus Ex Post Constraints on the Discretion of Trial Court Judges

In most states, trial judges’ sentencing is constrained by both ex ante constraints, in the form of mandatory and guideline sentences, and ex post review, often by the electorate. Might voters alter their evaluation of judges given the existence of boundaries on judicial discretion? Further, can legislators exploit this response? We present a model of ex ante and ex post control of judges given...