"Flowering Meadows" is the name of a new style of agri-environmental contract which has been included into the French Rural Development Plan 2007-2013. This contract is unusual in all respects. Management prescriptions are given up: the farmer is free to tend his meadow as he wants as long as he...

This paper analyses whether the different powers and resources at the disposal of local and regional governments across Europe deliver greater satisfaction with political institutions and lead to greater personal happiness. The analysis uses microdata from the four available waves of the...