Political Agency and Implementation Subsidies with Imperfect Monitoring

Abstract : Voters are frequently ill-equipped to monitor politicians' actions. Politicians are expected to implement projects, whose benefits sometimes partially accrue to interest groups and not entirely to voters. Since implementing projects is costly, interest groups have an incentive to subsidise policy-making. This paper shows how these considerations interact in a two-periods political agency model with moral hazard and adverse selection. I show how the existence of self-interested interest groups and their involvement in the policy-making process affect voters' welfare. I also show why voters do not fully monitor politicians in the presence of interest groups that might capture projects' benefits.

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The Making of Financial Regulation - Voting on the U.s. Congress

Abstract : This paper studies the voting patterns of members of the U.S. Congress on financial regulation between 1991 and 2014. It uses the most comprehensive dataset assembled on campaign contributions from the financial sector and it is the first study on this subject taking a long-term perspective. This long-term approach on a binary dependent variable regression with unbalanced panel data allows me to address the problem of endogeneity in a new and more rigorous manner. This happens because I have multiple votes on the same bill. I find that campaign contributions are the strongest driver of congressional voting. This variable increases the likelihood of voting in favour of deregulatory bills.

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Economic Interests, Partisan Politics, and Environmental Polarization

Abstract : Focusing on environmental legislation since 1970s, this paper seeks to identify economic and political causes of party polarization in the US Congress. Three questions guide the analysis. First, why did environmental polarization emerge from initial bipartisanship? Second, why did Republicans become anti-environmental and Democrats pro-environmental? Third, what is the relative role of economic and party forces in explaining environmental polarization? The theoretical framework extends stochastic electoral competition models by incorporating new interest groups into political parties. The model allows us to explain the rise in environmental polarization, the role of interest groups in mitigating the effects of income on environmental voting, and the role of party in shaping votes. Our empirical analysis combine data on congressional environmental votes from 1971 to 2016 with data on legislator characteristics, congressional district economic and demographic information, and interest group contributions. The empirical analysis confirms that party polarization emerged over time from initial bipartisanship, but also finds evidence that economic forces play a role in environmental voting. More results.

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