Hannes Mueller

Cultural Leaders and the Clash of Civilizations

This article builds a microfounded model of cultural conflict. In this model, intrinsically motivated cultural leaders supply and interpret culture. Leaders have an incentive to amplify disagreement about cultural values. This leads to a clash of perspectives between cultures. The population benefits from the supply of culture but suffers if leaders amplify the clash of perspectives. The article discusses constraints to leader behavior and analyzes how economic factors affect the incentives of cultural leaders. Economic strength can lead to displays of cultural arrogance while economic integration between groups can hinder cultural alienation.

Insulation or Patronage: Political Institutions and Bureaucratic Efficiency

Abstract This article presents a model of political insulation of bureaucracies. Political influence can harm competence because it lowers the incentives of bureaucrats to invest in competence. Politicians then want to adopt institutions that insulate the bureaucracy because this establishes a commitment to reward competence. Political leaders insulate the bureaucracy if public good provision is important compared to rent extraction or when political competition forces the political elite to internalize the welfare loss caused by patronage. Through this channel political reforms can lead to reforms of the bureaucracy. The theoretical findings are illustrated with existing empirical studies and data on central bank independence.

Cohesive Institutions and the Distribution of Political Rents: Theory and Evidence

This paper considers how public resources are distributed across groups and how this depends on the institutional environment. It shows how executive constraints and openness should matter to this and argues that a key role for institutions is to protect politically excluded groups. It develops an approach to judging political institutions based on the idea that cohesive institutions play a role when there is uncertainty about the allocation of political power. Using spatial data on night light, it shows inequality is lower with executive constraints. In addition, politically excluded groups do better within countries when such constraints are in force.