Policy by Contract: electoral cycles, parties and social pacts, 1974–2000

Policy by Contract Social pacts in Australia and New Zealand

Governments often make public deals with interest groups, yet the conditions under which these bargains emerge are not well understood. This paper explores these policy contracts in the context of “social pacts”, where governments sign explicit policy agreements with peak level union federations for electoral gain. I develop a theory of pacts and then apply it to an empirical puzzle emerging fr...

Electoral Incentives and Political Parties in the Brazilian Budget Policy

Equilibrium Social Insurance with Policy-Motivated Parties

We study the political economy of social insurance with double heterogeneity of voters (i.e., different income and risk levels). Social insurance is financed through distortionary taxation and redistributes across income and risks. Individuals vote over the extent of social insurance, which they can complement on the private market. Private insurance suffers from adverse selection which results...

Parties, Electoral Systems and Taxation 1870-1945

In this paper I argue that the effect of ideology on tax structure depends on the electoral system. Earlier research has argued that left wing governments tax more progressively, but in light of recent empirical work, this has been challenged. The dominant approach instead posits that the left taxes regressively while spending progressively. That is, the left still redistributes more, but it ta...

Electoral Selection with Parties and Primaries

We develop a model of intra-party candidate selection under partisan electoral competition and voter uncertainty. Candidates for office belong to parties, which are factions of ideologically similar candidates. Each party’s candidate for a general election can be selected either by a “centralized” mechanism that effectively randomizes over possible candidates, or by voters in a primary election...