We consider rent-seeking contests with two players that each have private information about their own cost of effort. We consider both discrete and continuous distributions of costs and give results for each case, focusing on existence of equilibria. JEL Classification: D72; C72

Conditions are identified which guarantee the strategic equivalence of rentseeking, innovation, and patent-race games. Our results permit one to apply theorems and results intended for rent-seeking games to other games, and vice versa. We conclude with several examples that highlight the practical utility of our results. (JEL Numbers: D00, L00, D72;

We construct both monotonic and non-monotonic symmetric Bayesian Nash equilibria for a two-player all-pay contest with binary types and correlated information structures. We also employ a class of parametric distributions to illustrate our equilibrium construction explicitly and to derive some comparative statics results. JEL classi…cations: C72, D44, D72, D82.

We present a model of information aggregation in which agents’ information is represented through partitions over states of the world. We discuss three axioms, meet separability, upper unanimity, and non-imposition, and show that these three axioms characterize the class of oligarchic rules, which combine all of the information held by a pre-specified set of individuals. JEL classification: D70...

We consider the class of proper monotonic simple games and study coalition formation when an exogenous share vector and a solution concept are combined to guide the distribution of coalitional worth. Using a multiplicative composite solution, we induce players’ preferences over coalitions in a hedonic game, and present conditions under which the semistrict core of the game is nonempty. JEL Clas...

This paper considers political credibility of allocations in settings with dynamic private information. It embeds a benchmark dynamic moral environment into political economy games which feature repeated voting over mechanisms. Optimal politically credible allocations are shown to solve virtual planning problems with social discount factors in excess of the private one. JEL codes: C73, D72, D82...

We propose a model of political careers and electoral accountability in an environment which politicians may take bribes at different stages their politicians’ actions are only imperfectly observed by voters. show that the expectation promotion to higher office motivate some behave worse latest careers, setting off trade-off between providing incentives for good behavior lower levels selecting ...

We introduce a path-based measure of convexity to be used in assessing the compactness of legislative districts. Our measure is the probability that a district will contain the shortest path between a randomly selected pair of its’ points. The measure is defined relative to exogenous political boundaries and population distributions. JEL classification: D72, K00, K19

This chapter gives a flavour of recent theoretical work on coalition formation and political parties. I survey recent work on both pre-election coalition formation and post election coalition (or government) formation. A number of alternative rationales for the formation of parties are compared with the help of some illustrative examples. JEL Classification:C71, C72, C78, D71, D72, D78