This paper studies strategic communication by an expert who is concerned about appearing to be well informed. The expert is assumed to observe a private signal with a simple and particularly tractable (“multiplicative linear”) structure. The quality of the expert’s information is evaluated on the basis of the advice given and the realized state of the world. In equilibrium of this reputational ...

Many public goods are supported with both private and public funding. It is often argued that public funding, based on taxes, crowds out private philanthropic contributions. Agents respond to increases in taxes by decreasing their donations. However, the tax level depends on the political equilibrium arising from agents’ voting decisions. In this paper we analyze a variety of motivations for vo...

This paper presents a model in which voters attempt to balance the ideological positions of their Senate representatives. Candidate positions are determined endogenously through a primary system. The median voter theorem is applied in each election to determine winning platforms based on voter preferences which may differ from their individual bliss points. Contrary to the original median voter...

Modern societies are characterized by competing organizations that rely predominantly on incentive schemes to align the behavior of their members with the organizations’ objectives. This study contributes to explaining why in so many cases incentive schemes have gradually crowded out cooperation as an organization device. Our explanation does not draw on free-riding, the obvious Achilles’ heel ...

We develop a de nition of equilibrium for agenda formation in general voting settings. The de nition is independent of any protocol. We show that the set of equilibrium outcomes for any Pareto eÆcient voting rule is uniquely determined, and in fact coincides with that of the outcomes generated by considering all full agendas. Under voting by successive elimination (or amendment), the set of equ...

This experiment investigates contests between groups. Each group has one strong player, with a higher valuation for the prize, and two weak players, with lower valuations. In contests where individual efforts are perfect substitutes, all players expend significantly higher efforts than predicted by theory. In best-shot contests, where group performance depends on the best performer, most of the...

During the last decade unicameral proposals have been put forward in fourteen US states. In this paper we analyze the effects of the proposed constitutional reforms, in a setting where decision making is subject to ‘hard time constraints’, and lawmakers face the opposing interests of a lobby and the electorate. We show that bicameralism might lead to a decline in the lawmakers’ bargaining power...

How is economic policy made? In this paper we study a key determinant of the answer to the question: lobbying by firms. Estimating a binary choice model of firm behavior, we find significant evidence for the idea that barriers to entry induce persistence in lobbying. The existence of these costs is further confirmed in studying how firms responded to a particular policy change: the expiration o...

We compare voluntary and compulsory voting in a Condorcet-type model in which voters have identical preferences but differential information. With voluntary voting, all equilibria involve sincere voting and positive participation. Thus, in contrast to situations with compulsory voting, there is no conflict between strategic and sincere behavior. When voting is costless, voluntary voting is welf...

We study political activism by several interest groups with private signals. When their ideological distance to the policymaker is small, a “low-trust” regime prevails: agents frequently lobby even when it is unwarranted, taking advantage of the conŽ rmation provided by others’ activism; conversely, the policymaker responds only to generalized pressure. When ideological distance is large, a “hi...