Research

(23)  In When Democracy Refuses to Die: Evaluating a Training Program for New Politicians (2024, with Claudio Ferraz, Fred Finan, and Pedro Pessoa) we study whether a non-partisan initiative in Brazil can lower barriers to political entry and make the political class more competent, diverse, and committed to democracy. We overcome important identification hurdles by combining a theory of political selection with extremely rich data on aspirants and graduates of the program, and find that the program made substantial progress toward meeting its goals. PDF

(22) In Dissecting the Sinews of Power: International Trade and the Rise of Britain’s Fiscal-Military State, 1689-1823 (Forthcoming, Journal of Economic History, with Karolina Hutková, Lukas Leucht, and Noam Yuchtman) we establish a novel historical fact using previously unexploited archival data. The development of Imperial Britain’s fiscal-military state from the late 17th through the early 19th century relied, to a large and growing extent, on the extraction of tax revenues from trade. This overturns an existing literature – most notably, Brewer’s Sinews of Power (1989) – which argues that fiscal development in Britain was primarily a result of domestic indirect taxation. This fact has important implications for our understanding of the institutional basis of Britain’s development (and thus the emergence of modern growth). While the conventional wisdom considers domestic institutions and domestic economic activity in Britain to be the primary drivers, our evidence suggests an important role for trade, and therefore mercantilism and empire. PDF

(21) In Economic And Social Outsiders But Political Insiders: Sweden's Radical Right (2023, Review of Economic Studies, with Fred Finan, Olle Folke, Torsten Persson and Johanna Rickne), we study the individual characteristics of radical-right politicians. Two policy and economic shocks in the 2000s increased the demand and supply of radical-right politicians, who appear to be citizen-candidates representing those who were hurt by the shocks. The new political entrants make representation more “descriptive”–the radical-right politicians share the socioeconomic traits of those hurt by the shocks—, but also less valence-oriented. A tradeoff arises between descriptive representation and leadership competence, and dilutes the “inclusive meritocracy” profile of the Swedish political class we had characterized in earlier work. PDF Paper Supplementary appendix

(20) In The Paradox of Civilization. Pre-Institutional Sources of Security and Prosperity (2022, American Political Science Review, with Pablo Hernández and Sebastián Mazzuca), we analyze the puzzle of civilization – civilization requires prosperity but prosperity attracts predation, which discourages the investments that deliver prosperity. We emphasize aspects of the geographic and strategic environment that affect productive and defense capabilities, to study how civilization can emerge and why when it does it combines prosperity with another innovation: the state. We apply the model to explain the rise of the first two civilizations in Sumer and Egypt. PDF Paper Related Vox article

(19) In Information Technology and Government Decentralization: Experimental Evidence From Paraguay (2021, Econometrica, with Fred Finan, Nicholas Li, and Laura Schechter), we estimate the value of disperse information in an organization. The context is the adoption by a government principal of a new monitoring technology over agents; a novel experimental design and a model allow us to estimate marginal treatment effects at different scales of rollout, and assess the value of decentralization under various counterfactual scenarios. PDF 

(18) In Progress and Perspectives in the Study of Political Selection (2018, Annual Review of Economics, with Fred Finan) we offer a review othe literature on political selection guided by a simple model of self-selection by candidates with potentially different qualities in a probabilistic voting world. PDF

(17) In The Demand for Bad Policy When Voters Underappreciate Equilibrium Effects (2018, Review of Economic Studies, with Pedro Dal Bó and Erik Eyster), we show experimentally that groups can fail to resolve social dilemmas through democratic means due to their inability to anticipate the equilibrium effects of new policies or institutions. PDF Online Appendix

(16) In Who Becomes a Politician? (2017, Quarterly Journal of Economics, with Fred Finan, Olle Folke, Torsten Persson and Johanna Rickne), we describe fundamental patterns of political selection in an advanced democracy (Sweden) and document various new facts. These imply that representative democracy can produce an “inclusive meritocracy,” whereby political leadership is highly competent relative to the population, as well as representative of the various socioeconomic backgrounds in society. PDF Related Vox article

(15) In The Economics of Faith: Using an Apocalyptic Prophecy to Elicit Religious Beliefs in the Field (2016, Journal of Public Economics, with Ned Augenblick, Jesse Cunha, and Justin Rao), we overcome important difficulties in the identification of religious beliefs -  we offer a model of faith as a “demand for beliefs,” and measure it through a field experiment on time preference with a group holding apocalyptic beliefs. PDF

(14) In “Do the Right Thing:” The Effects of Moral Suasion on Cooperation, (2014, Journal of Public Economics, with Pedro Dal Bó), we study experimentally whether and how moral appeals can help sustain cooperation. Moral appeals cause a transitory increase in cooperation in basic public good games, but moral appeals have persistent effects in the presence of punishment instruments. We find that moral suasion works both through expectation and preference-shifting effects. Expectation effects imply the presence of a “social moral amplifier.” PDF

(13) In Strengthening State Capabilities: The Role of Financial Incentives in the Call to Public Service, (2013, Quarterly Journal of Economics 128(3), August 2013, with Fred Finan and Martín Rossi) we report on a recruitment drive in Mexico’s federal government which included exogenous variation of wage postings and job characteristics. We document the anatomy of the applicant pool along many dimensions including previous earnings, cognitive skills, personality traits, and motivation, we estimate the impact of higher wages on the quality and size of the applicant pool and the ability of the recruiter to fill vacancies, yielding the first experimental estimate of the elasticity of the labor supply facing the firm. We also estimate the effect on job acceptance rates of various characteristics of the job, including distance to the job and the job environment. PDF paper Online Appendix

(12) In Self-Esteem, Moral Capital, and Wrongdoing, (Journal of the European Economic Association 11(3), June 2013, with Marko Terviö), we develop an infinite horizon, single-self, model of endogenous moral standards featuring self-reinforcing patterns of virtue and corruption. We develop applications to study why morally weaker types may self-select into high temptation activities (e.g., politics), and how optimal extrinsic deterrence schemes may change once endogenous intrinsic motivation is considered. We also use the model to study the dynamics of beliefs about self (“moral capital”) and wrongdoing in a population in demographic steady state. PDF

(11) In Term Length and The Effort of Politicians, (Review of Economic Studies 78(4), October 2011, with Martín Rossi) we exploit two natural experiments in the Argentine legislature to assess the causal effect of term length on various measures of legislative effort by politicians. PDF

(10) In Workers, Warriors and Criminals: Social Conflict in General Equilibrium, (Journal of the European Economic Association 9(4), August 2011, with Pedro Dal Bó) we study social conflict in its connection to the appropriation of resources. We show that not every wealth-increasing shock (or policy) will reduce conflict. What is critical is the factor intensity of the industry initially affected. The model integrates the effects of income shocks on the opportunity costs and predatory incentives involved in conflict, to explain empirical patterns of crime and civil war. The model accounts for various populist and redistributive policies, and for resistance to reform. PDF

(9) In A Model of Spoils Politics, (American Journal of Political Science 53(1), January 2009, with Robert Powell), we study spoils politics as a coercive signaling game where an informed party seeks to co-opt a challenger and study conditions leading to inefficient conflict and to the endogenous resolution of the asymmetric information that causes conflict. PDF

(8) In Political Dynasties, (Review of Economic Studies 76(1), January 2009, with Pedro Dal Bó and Jason Snyder), we study political dynasties in the US Congress since 1789. We document various facts in connection with the historical evolution of dynasties and the profile of dynastic politicians. We also study the self-perpetuation of political elites and analyze the connection between political competition and the prevalence of dynastic politicians. PDF

(7) In Reputation When Threats and Transfers Are Available,  (Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 16(3), Fall 2007, with Pedro Dal Bó and Rafael Di Tella), we study how pressure groups and extorters may combine threats and payments (offers or requests) to influence targets, while threats become endogenously credible. Transfers allow the long-lived player to benefit from reputation even in arbitrarily short repeated games and under low priors on his being tough. PDF

(6) In Bribing Voters, (American Journal of Political Science 51(4), October 2007), I study the optimal ways to influence voting decisions. I derive implications for influence over legislatures and boards, and analyze when voting should be made secret. PDF paper  Extension with expressive voters under uncertainty  

(5) In Corruption and Inefficiency: Theory and Evidence from Electric Utilities, (Journal of Public Economics 91(5-6), June 2007, with Martín Rossi) we find that corruption in the country is strongly associated with higher inefficiency of firms, even when controlling by regulatory regime, ownership type, and other important forces varying by country and time. PDF

(4) In Regulatory Capture: A Review, (Oxford Review of Economic Policy 22, August 2006), I provide an overview of theories and evidence of regulatory capture. PDF

(3) In Committees With Supermajority Voting Yield Commitment With Flexibility, (Journal of Public Economics 90(4), May 2006), I show that in the presence of dynamic inconsistency a committee deciding under a supermajority voting rule will optimally balance commitment and flexibility. PDF

(2) In “Plata o Plomo?”: Bribe and Punishment in a Theory of Political Influence, (American Political Science Review 100(1), February 2006, with Pedro Dal Bó and Rafael Di Tella) we show that factors causing more state capture tend to worsen the quality of politicians, and we show how legal immunity can decrease official corruption and increase the quality of politicians. PDF 

(1) In Capture by Threat, (Journal of Political Economy 111(5), October 2003, with Rafael Di Tella) we study coercive influence by a special interest. The coercive nature of influence makes the efforts of a defending agent (the political party) only mitigating. Thus, under otherwise symmetric pressures and even when having a strict preference for doing the right thing, a political authority yields to socially suboptimal interest group influence with positive probability. In addition, factors that enhance capture by threat worsen the quality of politicians.

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(6) Institutions and Economic Development: Taking Stock and Moving Forward (2021, “Green Paper” for the Economic Institutions and Development Initiative), with Fred Finan and Yuen Ho. Link.

(5) At the Intersection:  A Review of Institutions in Economic Development (2020, “White Paper” for the Economic Institutions and Development Initiative), with Fred Finan, Chapter 1 in Baland, J., Bourguignon, F., Platteau, J., & Verdier, T. (Eds.), The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Link. 

(4) Building Capabilities for Productive Development (2018, co-edited with Jorge Cornick, Eduardo Fernández Arias, Gonzalo Rivas and Ernesto Stein), Interamerican Development Bank. Link

(3) Making politics work for development : harnessing transparency and citizen engagement (2016, World Bank Policy Report, led by Stuti Khemani; with Claudio Ferraz, Fred Finan, Corinne Stephenson, Adesinaola Odugbemi, Dikshya Thapa, and Scott David Abrahams.) Link

(2) In Conflict and Policy in General Equilibrium: Insights from a Standard Trade Model (2012, Chapter 25 in the Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict, with Pedro Dal Bó) we revisit the “Workers, Warriors and Criminals” framework of conflict in a small open economy to derive novel results and rank policy responses. PDF

(1) In Bribes, Punishment, and Judicial Immunity (2007, in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report, with Pedro Dal Bó and Rafael Di Tella) we revisit the theoretical links between violence, corruption, and the quality of public officials established in our “Plata o Plomo?” framework, and document the cross-country empirical association between conflict, law and order, corruption, and bureaucratic quality. PDF