HOME / SEARCH /

Search

Search results

    Shleifer, Andrei, and Robert W Vishny. 1994. “Politicians and Firms.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 109 (4): 995-1025.
    PDF
    Shleifer, Andrei. 2009. “Peter Bauer and the Failure of Foreign Aid.” Cato Journal 29 (3): 379-390. Abstract
    PDF

    Peter Bauer was one of the greatest development economists in liistory. He was an advocate of property rights protection and free trade before tliese ideas became commonplace. He appreciated before otliers did tlie crucial roles of entrepreneurship and trade in development. He was also one of the earliest opponents of the over- population tliesis, recognizing tliat tlie poor like tlie rich should have tlie right to choose the number of children tliey have, tliat many developing countries are underpopulated, and that population growtli will anyhow slow down once they become richer Bauer's writings are remarkable for tlieir deep humanity and commitment to tlie welfare of tlie people in die developing world, but without the fake sanctimony tliat characterizes much of die modem rhetoric.

    Murphy, Kevin M, and Andrei Shleifer. 2004. “Persuasion in Politics.” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 94 (2): 435-439. Abstract
    PDF

    Recent research on social psychology and public opinion identifies a number of empirical regularities on how people form beliefs in the political and social spheres. First, beliefs are flexible and can be relatively easily influenced, particularly in areas where people do not have significant personal involvement (Doris Graber, 1984; John Zaller, 1992). Second, social influence shapes decisions: people are often persuaded by those they personally interact with (Mark Grasnovetter, 1973; Robert Cialdini, 1984). Such influence from friends, co-workers, and other “discussants” significantly affects the decisions on whether and how to vote (Paul Beck et al., 2002). Third, in the political arena, voter awareness of specific issues is quite low, and hence susceptibility to persuasion is high (Zaller, 1992).
    We present a model of the creation of social networks, and of their use by politicians to obtain support, motivated by these empirical findings. These networks can be political par- ties, trade unions, religious coalitions, political action committees, or even listeners of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. The key idea is that people are influenced by those inside their net- work, but not by those outside, because those inside a network talk to and persuade each other. Networks are created by entrepreneurs using core issues that are centrally important to members, such as religious beliefs or union wages, but can then be “rented out” to politicians who seek votes as well as support for other initiatives and ideas, which might have little to do with their members’ core beliefs.

    Gennaioli, Nicola, and Andrei Shleifer. 2007. “Overruling and the Instability of Law.” Journal of Comparative Economics 35 (2): 309-328. Abstract
    PDF

    We investigate the evolution of common law under overruling, a system of precedent change in which appellate courts replace existing legal rules with new ones. We use a legal realist model, in which judges change the law to reflect their own preferences or attitudes, but changing the law is costly to them. The model’s predictions are consistent with the empirical evidence on the overruling behavior of the US Supreme Court and appellate courts. We find that overruling leads to unstable legal rules that rarely converge to efficiency. The selection of disputes for litigation does not change this conclusion. Our findings provide a rationale for the value of precedent, as well as for the general preference of appellate courts for distinguishing rather than overruling as a law-making strategy. Journal of Comparative Economics 35 (2) (2007) 309–328. University of Stockholm, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Harvard University, M9 Littauer Center, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
    © 2007 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Pages