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SSRN Research Paper Series
The Social Science Research Network’s Research Paper Series includes working papers produced by Stanford GSB the Rock Center.
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We link future members of Congress to the de-anonymized 1940 census to offer a uniquely detailed analysis of how economically unrepresentative American politicians were in the 20th century, and why. Future members under the age of…
Where the state is weak, traditional authorities often control the local provision of land, justice, and public goods. These authorities are criticized for ruling in an undemocratic and unaccountable fashion, and are typically…
While polls show progressive economic policies are popular, progressive candidates typically lose elections in the U.S. One explanation for this progressive paradox is that the opponents of progressive candidates often win through…
Candidate debates have a rich history and remain integral to contemporary campaign strategy. There is, however, little evidence that they affect the behavior of voters or politicians. The scarcity of political information in the…
Influential theories indicate concern that campaign donors exert outsized political influence. However, little data documents what donors actually want from government; and existing research largely neglects donors’ views on…
Can participation in financial markets lead individuals to re-evaluate the costs of conflict, change their political attitudes and even their votes? Prior to the 2015 Israeli elections, we randomly assigned Palestinian and Israeli…
How can we help individuals handle financial decisions in an increasingly complex environment? We explore an easily scalable avenue for improving financial understanding: learning by online trading in stocks. We randomly assign…
We study the contracting problem of a principal who chooses between motivating an agent to exert effort or taking her outside option. The agent is privately informed about his ability, where a higher-ability agent faces a lower…
The level of journalistic resources dedicated to coverage of local politics is in a long term decline in the US news media, with readership shifting to national outlets. We investigate whether this trend is demand- or supply…
Classic arguments for decentralization, augmented by ideas about how participation empowers the poor, motivate the widely used approach in foreign aid called community-driven development. CDD devolves control over the selection…
American politics overrepresents the wealthy. But what policies do the wealthy support? Many accounts implicitly assume the wealthy are monolithically conservative and that increases in their political power will increase…
This paper studies the welfare effects of a partial banking union in which cross-country financial transfers that could be used towards bailouts are decided at the supranational level, but policymakers in member countries hold…
I examine the conditions under which trade can support peaceful coexistence and prosperity when particular ethnic groups are cheap targets of violence. A simple theoretical framework reveals that for a broad set of cases, while…
Politicians are widely perceived to lose significance upon leaving office. Yet media accounts often highlight politicians’ legacies as a source of influence that endures even after they retire. This article assesses these…
Leading research is converging upon the finding that citizens from immigrant-receiving nations strongly prefer the entry of high-skilled to low-skilled immigrants. Prior studies have largely interpreted this “skill premium” as…
How natural disasters affect politics in developing countries is an important question, given the fragility of fledgling democratic institutions in some of these countries as well as likely increased exposure to natural disasters…
We analyze a model of policymaking in which only one actor, e.g., a bureaucratic agency or a well-funded interest group, has the capacity to develop high-quality policy proposals. By virtue of her skills, this actor has an…
We analyze the classic problem of sustaining trust when cheating and leaving trading partners is easy, and outside enforcement is difficult. We construct equilibria where individuals are loyal to smaller groups– communities– that…
Political institutions often use decision making procedures that create veto players—individuals or groups who, despite lacking direct decision making authority, nevertheless have the power to block policy change. In this paper we…
We present a theory of dynamic coalitions for a legislative bargaining game in which policies continue in effect in the absence of new legislation. We characterize Markov perfect equilibria with dynamic coalitions, which are…