Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 22.
(refine search)
Working Paper
A theory of political cycles
We study how the proximity of elections affects policy choices in a model in which policymakers want to improve their reputation to increase their reelection chances. Policymakers' equilibrium decisions depend on both their reputation and the proximity of the next election. Typically, incentives to influence election results are stronger closer to the election (for a given reputation level), as argued in the political cycles literature, and these political cycles are less important when the policymaker's reputation is better. Our analysis sheds light on other agency relationships in which ...
Report
Education, political instability, and growth
Empirical evidence suggests a positive association between income levels and growth rates on the one hand, and political stability and educational attainment on the other. This paper develops a simple finite--horizon overlapping growth model that in the absence of institutions for precommitment has a political equilibrium with inefficiently low growth, low educational attainment, and high returns to schooling. In the model, the laissez-faire growth rate is inefficient due to an intergenerational externality in the decision to accumulate knowledge. We then contrast the efficient growth rate ...
Journal Article
Putting stock in political races
Virginia's 1994 U.S. Senate race has commanded national attention as high-profile candidates contend for a single seat.
Working Paper
Politics and exchange rate forecasts
Standard exchange rate models perform poorly in out-of-sample forecasting when compared to the random walk model. We posit part of the poor performance of these models may be due to omission of political factors. We test this hypothesis by including political variables that capture party-specific, election-specific and candidate-specific characteristics. Surprisingly, we find our political model outperforms the random walk in out-of-sample forecasting at one to twelve month horizons for the pound/dollar, mark/dollar, pound/mark and the trade-weighted dollar, mark, and pound exchange rates.
Report
Finite horizons, political economy, and growth
This paper analyzes the political economy of growth when agents and the government have finite horizons and equilibrium growth is inefficient. A "representative" government (that is, one whose preferences reflect those of its constituents) endowed merely with the ability to tax and transfer can improve somewhat on the market allocation but cannot achieve first-best growth. Efficiency requires in addition the ability to bind future governments. We argue that this ability is related to political stability, and provide empirical evidence that stability and growth-related policies (namely ...
Working Paper
Exclusion in all-pay auctions
A description of a procedure for increasing the seller's expected revenue in an all-pay auction, specifically in the case of lobbying, where a politician is typically assumed to award the political prize to the highest bidder.
