We provide the first empirical analysis of gubernatorial pay. Using US data for 1950-90 we document, contrary to widespread assumptions, substantial variation in the wages of politicians, both across states and over time. Gubernatorial wages respond to changes in state income per capita and...

COVID-19 relief legislation offers a unique setting to study how political representation shapes the distribution of federal assistance to state and local governments. We provide evidence of a substantial small-state bias: an additional Senator or Representative per million residents predicts an...

Capital cities serve as the administrative centers of state governments and perform many functions, such as housing the seats of state government and often serving as the focal points of culture and history in their states. Many capital cities across the United States incur large direct and...

Indonesia has a tradition of corruption among local officials who harass and collect bribes from firms. Corruption flourished in the Suharto, pre-democracy era. This paper asks whether local democratization that occurred after Suharto reduced corruption and whether specific local politics, over...

There are still many countries around the world that have not effectively engaged their subnational governments in their climate change strategies and policy frameworks. Where subnational levels are involved, generally they still play a relatively small role. This paper examines how the...

Inefficiencies from tax competition may result in governments seeking to limit fiscal competition via tax treaties, harmonization, minimum tax rates, or interjurisdictional cooperation. I propose a general model applicable to studying many types of taxing instruments, which allows for the...

The article deals with a way of standardizing project and program management methods in public administration, considering that they have been initiated by a number of administration units having a great autonomy, independently of the government strategy. To manage the government strategy, an...

This article proposes a structural approach to measuring the effects of electoral accountability. We estimate a political agency model with imperfect information in order to identify and quantify discipline and selection effects, using data on U.S. governors. We find that the possibility of...

Media censorship is prevalent in autocratic regimes, but little is known about how and why censorship might vary within a country. I collect close to 40,000 articles from Chinese newspapers about officials caught during Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, which is campaign widely publicised...

We study how adverse economic shocks influence political outcomes in authoritarian regimes in strong states, by examining the 2013-2015 export slowdown in China. We exploit detailed customs data and the variation they reveal about Chinese prefectures' underlying exposure to the global trade...

We examine how a key provision of the Affordable Care Act – the expansion of Medicaid eligibility – affected health insurance coverage, access to care, and labor market transitions of unemployed workers. Comparing trends in states that implemented the Medicaid expansion to those that did...

We examine how a key provision of the Affordable Care Act--the expansion of Medicaid eligibility--affected health insurance coverage, access to care, and labor market transitions of unemployed workers. Comparing trends in states that implemented the Medicaid expansion to those that did not, we...

We study how adverse economic shocks influence political outcomes in authoritarian regimes in strong states, by examining the 2013-2015 export slowdown in China. We exploit detailed customs data and the variation they reveal about Chinese prefectures' underlying exposure to the global trade...

We examine how a key provision of the Affordable Care Act--the expansion of Medicaid eligibility--affected health insurance coverage, access to care, and labor market transitions of unemployed workers. Comparing trends in states that implemented the Medicaid expansion to those that did not, we...

The article deals with a way of standardizing project and program management methods in public administration, considering that they have been initiated by a number of administration units having a great autonomy, independently of the government strategy. To manage the government strategy, an...

In recent decades, federal and unitary countries have increasingly adopted or deepened regional governance reforms, especially in the OECD and Europe, but also in Asia, America and to a lesser extent Africa. Approximately two-thirds of countries around the world have increased the power of...

We argue that inter-jurisdictional competition in a regionally decentralized authoritarian regime distorts local politicians' incentives in resource allocation among firms from their own city and a competing city. We develop a tournament model of project selection that captures the driving...

The paper examines the role of testosterone‐driven aggressive behavior in the politics of non‐democratic regimes and, in particular, its influence on the extent of repressiveness of these regimes. To measure testosterone exposure, we apply the facial width‐to‐height metric (fWHR) – a...

Promoting integrity in subnational government can be a challenge, but it is crucial. Indeed, it is often at this level where trust in government is forged, and where actions to promote integrity have the greatest impact. This report looks at efforts in Peru to introduce an integrity function at...