We link the intensity of campaign competition in different electoral systems with the number of candidates running for public office and their ideological differentiation. We show that proportional elections have more candidates, competing less aggressively in campaign spending, than those in majoritarian elections. Candidates' ideological…

Optimal communication to a group often entails a trade-off between precision of information conveyed and common understanding (or approximate common knowledge) of the information within the group. We argue that an understanding of this trade-off is central in many contexts, including central bank communication and the design of accounting…

International institutions that include an escape clause generate more durable & stable cooperative international regimes & are easier to achieve ex ante. The escape clause is endogenous in a model of repeated trade-barrier setting in the presence of symmetric, two-sided, political uncertainty. They permit, along the equilibrium path, countries to…

International institutions that include an escape clause generate more durable and stable cooperative international regimes and are easier to achieve ex ante. The escape clause is endogenous in a model of repeated trade-barrier setting in the presence of symmetric, two-sided, political uncertainty. They permit, along the equilibrium path,…

We study a dynamic matching environment where individuals arrive sequentially. There is a tradeoff between waiting for a thicker market, allowing for higher quality matches, and minimizing agents' waiting costs. The optimal mechanism cumulates a stock of incongruent pairs up to a threshold and matches all others in an assortative fashion…

The authors develop a model of alliances with outside options to study burden sharing in nonbinding alliance agreements. The analysis provides an explanation for the variation in ally contributions to NATO over time and why the post-Cold War period has seen an increase in the use of coalitions of the willing. Additionally, the analysis reveals…

This paper studies, theoretically and empirically, the role of overconfidence in political behavior. Our model of overconfidence in beliefs predicts that overconfidence leads to ideological extremeness, increased voter turnout, and stronger partisan identification. The model also makes nuanced predictions about the patterns of ideology in society…