Research Interests:
In democratic societies individual attitudes of voters represent the foundations of policy making. We start by analyzing patterns in public opinion on migration and find that, across countries of different income levels, only a small... more
In democratic societies individual attitudes of voters represent the foundations of policy making. We start by analyzing patterns in public opinion on migration and find that, across countries of different income levels, only a small minority of voters favour more open migration policies. Next we investigate the determinants of voters' preferences towards immigration from a theoretical and empirical point of view. Our analysis supports the role played by economic channels (labour market, welfare state, efficiency gains) using both the 1995 and 2003 rounds of the ISSP survey. The second part of the paper examines how attitudes translate into a migration policy outcome. We consider two alternative political-economy frameworks: the median voter and the interest groups model. On the one hand, the restrictive policies in place across destination countries and the very low fractions of voters favouring immigration are consistent with the median voter framework. At the same time, given...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Supreme Court has recently struck down key provisions of the Voting Right Act mandating federal scrutiny over states with a history of black disenfranchisement. How significant was the VRA for black political empowerment?... more
The Supreme Court has recently struck down key provisions of the Voting Right Act mandating federal scrutiny over states with a history of black disenfranchisement. How significant was the VRA for black political empowerment? Surprisingly, the answer to this important question remains largely moot. Using a novel dataset on the universe of local elected officials, we show that the VRA significantly boosted black representation in the immediate aftermath of its introduction. To identify the effect of the act we exploit the fact that a coverage formula was used to place a group of jurisdictions in the South – our treatment – under strict federal monitoring. Using non-covered counties of the former Confederacy as a comparison group, we find that larger pre–VRA shares of blacks led to a greater increase in black office holding in the treatment than in the control group. The impact of coverage was stronger in the presence of elections by single member districts. Finally, black representat...
Bicameralism and accountability with
Research Interests:
In this paper we review the literature on Pareto gains from trade. We start by discussing the distributional implications of trade which arise in the general heterogeneous agents case. We present the proof of Pareto gains from trade using... more
In this paper we review the literature on Pareto gains from trade. We start by discussing the distributional implications of trade which arise in the general heterogeneous agents case. We present the proof of Pareto gains from trade using lumpsum redistribution, followed by the same result with commodity taxation. Newer results involving non-linear taxation, in particular the special case of a duty free zone, are also discussed. Finally, we address the distributional effects of trade in the presence of increasing returns to scale and love of variety.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Este informe es parte de un serie de publicaciones que presentan una agenda de datos y análisis sobre un tema en particular, con la finalidad de llamar la atención internacional para enfocarse en cuestiones y opciones políticas que pongan... more
Este informe es parte de un serie de publicaciones que presentan una agenda de datos y análisis sobre un tema en particular, con la finalidad de llamar la atención internacional para enfocarse en cuestiones y opciones políticas que pongan a las personas en el centro de las estrategias, con el objetivo de afrontar los retos de desarrollo en la actualidad sean económico, social, político y cultural. En este caso analiza la nueva base de datos sobre decisiones políticas de inmigración reportadas por los gobiernos al Departamento de Economía y Asuntos Sociales de los Estados Unidos entre 1976 y 2007.
Party polarization is widely considered a pervasive but negative feature of mod-ern democracies because it undercuts the voice of the majority to the advantage of a minority in the policy making process. In this paper we show that... more
Party polarization is widely considered a pervasive but negative feature of mod-ern democracies because it undercuts the voice of the majority to the advantage of a minority in the policy making process. In this paper we show that political polarization, despite its costs, also provides some important benefits to the median voter. Modelling the interaction between candidates and voters as an infinitely re-peated game within a two-parties system, we show that polarization on ideological stances is key to obtain electoral accountability on non-ideological issues. We find a positive relationship between heterogeneity of ideological preferences and party polarization. Thus, when heterogeneity of preferences is large, the median voter is more likely to obtain accountability. At the same time, he is also less likely to see his ideological preferences represented. Because under party convergence accountability is inevitably compromised, the median voter faces a trade-off between "ideo...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Abstract will be provided by author.
Research Interests:
In congestion games, players use facilities from a common pool. The benefit that a player derives from using a facility depends, possibly among other things, on the number of users of this facility. The paper gives an easy alternative... more
In congestion games, players use facilities from a common pool. The benefit that a player derives from using a facility depends, possibly among other things, on the number of users of this facility. The paper gives an easy alternative proof of the isomorphism between exact potential games and the set of congestion games introduced by Rosenthal (1973). It clarifies the relations between existing models on congestion games, and studies a class of congestion games where the sets of Nash equilibria, strong Nash equilibria and potential-maximising strategies coincide. Particular emphasis is on the computation of potential-maximising strategies.