This paper studies how training vouchers increase the employment prospects of women with interrupted employment histories. Using the population of female job returners who receive a training voucher to participate in training courses and a randomly selected control group from German...

Most countries pay substantial intergovernmental transfers to poor regions with the aim of achieving regional convergence. Consequently, transfers should have a positive effect on economic growth. However, it is equally possible that transfers perpetuate under-development. This paper studies...

If voters do not perceive meaningful differences between parties and candidates, they tend to stay at home or choose by other factors like style or likability. This study examines whether including different kinds of information about the candidates on the ballot affects the satisfaction and...

Taxing capital gains is an important obstacle to the efficient allocation of resources because it imposes a transaction cost on the vendor which locks in appreciated assets by raising the vendor’s reservation price in prospective transactions. For M&As, this effect has been intensively studied...

The theoretical literature on fiscal federalism has identified several channels through which government decentralization could affect economic growth. Much of the literature focuses on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision of public services, but decentralization may also increase...

Formal fiscal rules have been introduced in many countries throughout the world. While most studies focus on the intra-jurisdictional effects of fiscal rules, vertical effects on the finances of other levels of government have yet to be explored thoroughly. This paper investigates the influence...

This study re-estimates the employment effects of training programs for the unemployed using exogenous variation in participation caused by budget rules in Germany in the 1980s and early 1990s, resulting in the infamous "end-of-year spending". In addition to estimating complier effects with...

This paper investigates the effects of electoral system changes in Japan, New Zealand and Italy on the overall level of spending as well as on social spending. In 1996 both Japan and New Zealand switched from a majoritarian rule to a mixed-member electoral system. Italy switched from a...

Do migrant parents change their labor market behavior when their children are born with the citizenship of the host country? In this study, I implement a difference-in-discontinuities approach to examine possible adjustments in employment and working hours following the introduction of...