The Sound of Silence: Anti-Defamation Law and Political Corruption. (November 2009)

I study the role of mass media in deterring politicians’ corruption under the assumption that even a non-corrupt politician can be indicated by the media as involved in a corruption scandal. When the justice system does not commit mistakes in judging the truthfulness of the published scandal, more stringent anti-defamation laws always increase the effectiveness of democratic institutions in deterring corruption. When justice is imperfect, if the anti-defamation law is so stringent that in equilibrium there exists at least one scandal that would not be worth publishing by the media even if it were to be true, then corruption is larger than without any anti-defamation protection. Nonetheless, there exists no equilibrium in which some true information is not revealed by the media (there is no chilling effect in equilibrium).

Jumping on the Bandwagon.The Promise of Pork-Barrel Politics and the Formation of Consensus for Political Regime Switches. (September 2008)

(Preliminary Note)

When political regime switches happen, the public opinion seems to widely support the switch. This consensus appears to be hidden or non- existing until the regime switch happens. This paper presents a possible explanation of this puzzle based on the (implicit) promise of the alterna- tive regime to reward its own supporters at the moment of the switch. Some normative conclusions are presented.

This Market will Self-Regulate: Learning by Losing.

Coalition Government and Voters' Influence (joint with Guillem Riambau Armet)