We study the dynamic taxation of capital and labor in the neoclassical growth model under the assumption that taxes and public good provision are decided by a self-interested politician who cannot commit to policies. Citizens can imperfectly control the politician using elections similar to a political agency model. As in the standard dynamic taxation models, we only allow for linear taxes on c...

Building on the political economy literature, we develop a conceptual model and apply it to explain the OPEC pricing behavior. We model OPEC as a cartel-of-nations where politician use two instruments: production quotas and domestic fuel consumption subsidies. Our model explains the wedge between domestic fuel prices in OPEC countries and in the rest of the world. The empirical estimates show t...

The importance of infrastructure for growth is well established in the macroeconomic literature. Previous research has treated public investment in infrastructure as exogenous. We remedy this shortcoming by providing a political economy analysis of infrastructure choice based upon consumer preferences derived from spatial competition models. In this setting, infrastructure investment has two po...

depth review of egyption recent developments in the overthrow of hosni mubarak's regime andelected government after the revolution, shows that recent movement in this country needs a analysis is based on political economy .certain direction the egyptian people in revolution, not merely for greater freedom and not the slightest tendency to set up tent style democracy such as the west, but o...

This paper develops a model of the interaction between the supply of hatecreating stories from politicians and the willingness of voters to listen to hatred. Hatred is fostered with stories of an out-group’s crimes, but the impact of these stories comes from repetition not truth. Hate-creating stories are supplied by politicians when such actions help to discredit opponents whose policies benef...

This paper studies the political economy of fertility. Specifically, I argue that fertility may be a strategic choice for ethnic groups engaged in redistributive conflict. I first present a simple conflict model where high fertility is optimal for each ethnic group if and only if the economy’s ethnic diversity is high and/or institutions are weak. I then test the model in a cross-national datas...

This paper analyses the political constraints of intergenerational risk sharing. The …rst result is that the political process generally does not lead to ex ante optimal insurance. The second result is that in a second best political setting PAYG still contributes to intergenerational risk sharing. The third result is that aging increases the discrepancy between …rst-best and second-best transf...