This study compares six metrics commonly used to identify influential players in two of Canada’s largest political Twitter communities based on the users, and ranking order of users, identified by each metric. All tweets containing the hashtag #CPC, representing the Conservative Party of Canada (government), and #NDP, representing the New Democratic Party of Canada (official opposition), were c...

When do people take political action? What roles do values, elite rhetoric, and social norms play in motivating action? These questions are of obvious importance for those interested in political behavior; however, little work – other than research on participation – explores the impact of these various factors. This study offers a framework that generates hypotheses about the role of values, r...

This paper discusses the issue of taxation and redistribution in economies dominated by Elites with limited state capacity. Within a simple aggregate framework, we discuss the political economy incentives of Elites to tax, redistribute and increase state capacity. In particular, the analysis highlights the role of complementarities or substitutability in the production process between the facto...

This paper investigates the relationship between international trade and the quality of economic institutions. We model institutions as fixed costs of entry, in a framework that has two key features. First, preferences over entry costs differ across firms and depend on firm size. Larger firms prefer to set higher costs of entry, in order to reduce competition. Second, these costs are endogenous...

Political elite is a social group that has risen to political “stardom” as claiming exercise authority and control the masses. The elites are undoubtedly generated by inequality rather than unequal amounts of talent or individual, spiritual other differences. Elite education, professional success, great ambitions, extensive expertise, standing in society, right connections, assertiveness, etc. ...

This paper discusses the issue of taxation and redistribution in economies dominated by Elites with limited state capacity. Within a simple aggregate framework, we discuss the political economy incentives of Elites to tax, redistribute and increase state capacity. In particular, the analysis highlights the role of complementarities or substitutability in the production process between the facto...

The kingdom of Ryukyu existed in a potentially unstable political and diplomatic space between Japan and China. Among other functions, Ryukyu served as a conduit of information and goods from China to Japan during the early modern era (1609-1879). In this capacity, the small island kingdom was able to maintain a substantial degree of political autonomy as long as it maintained close ties to Chi...

This study addresses dynamics of viral information in the blogosphere, and is interested in empirically understanding how blogs play a role in the virality process. More specifically, we develop a new methodology that creates a map of the ‘life cycle’ of blogs posting links to viral information. Our dataset focuses on the linking practices of blogs to the most significant viral videos of the 20...

This paper analyses the dynamics of inequality, democratization and economic development in a political economy model of growth where education is both the engine of growth and a determinant of political participation. In a context with imperfect capital markets, we investigate the incentives for an educated oligarchy to subsidize the poor’s education and to initiate a democratic transition. We...