Despite the recognition that asylum policies are partly determined by political economy factors in the destination country, there is little empirical evidence on the precise linkages between those political factors and asylum policies. We shed light on this issue by examining the impact of...

Using a panel of naturalizations in U.S. states from 1965 to 2012, we empirically analyze the impact of elections on naturalization policy. Our results indicate that naturalization policy is (partly) driven by national elections: there are more naturalizations in presidential election years and...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfareenhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....