Periodic elections are the main instrument through which voters can hold politicians accountable. From this perspective term limits, which restrict voters’ ability to reward politicians with re-election, appear counterproductive. We show that despite the disciplining effect of elections, term limits can be ex ante welfare improving from the perspective of voters. By reducing the value of holdin...

We present a tool to generate real world political networks from user provided lists of politicians and news sites. Additional output includes visualizations, interactive tools and maps that allow a user to better understand the politicians and their surrounding environments as portrayed by the media. As a case study, we construct a comprehensive list of current Texas politicians, select news s...

A recent line of research in the field humor has proposed existence two morally based comic styles. One them, corrective (or satire), seeks to ridicule and mock establish justice. In contrast, benevolent attempts correct deviances using a friendly manner understanding human imperfections. Considering their focus on correcting what is perceived as wrong, this study we seek examine how these styl...

Periodic elections are the main instrument through which voters can hold politicians accountable. From this perspective term limits, which restrict voters’ ability to reward politicians with re-election, appear counterproductive. We show that despite the disciplining effect of elections, term limits can be ex ante welfare improving from the perspective of voters. By reducing the value of holdin...

This article provides a test of the secularization hypothesis, which argues that economic growth, industrialization, increased literacy and decreasing fertility depress religiosity. It focuses on the elections of the secular politicians who voted in favor of the separation between Church and State in the French Parliament in 1905. If the secularization hypothesis is correct, these secular polit...

I introduce a microfounded model of campaign finance with office-seeking politicians, a continuum of voters, and a large number of heterogeneous lobbies. Lobbies make contributions to politicians according to a common agency framework. Politicians use contributions to finance their electoral expenditures. Voters are not fooled by electoral expenditures: they are influenced in a way that is cons...

While plenty of research has provided important insights into the uses of the Internet by politicians during elections, a relatively scarce amount of work has looked into these uses outside of such parliamentary events. This article seeks to remedy this lack of research by presenting a study on the 'routine' uses of two of the currently most popular social media services - Facebook and Twitter....