Abstract Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage change the half U.S. states mandated by Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed regulation independent expenditures provides an advance over identification strategies u...

Because of the lack of competition regulation, certain contract provisions attempt to substitute for such vacuum. In an era when private ownership of infrastructure projects is gaining grounds, the need for elaborated competition regulation is more pressing than ever. Private ownership does not necessarily mean personal funding. The more common mode of funding involves a syndicate of banks, whi...