The extent of government deficits and debt has been one of the most debated issues in recent years. However, very little has been contributed about their dynamics . Yet, the issue of entering into and exiting from excessive deficits will be critical in the European monetary union since the...

Politics must address multiple problems simultaneously. In an ideal world, political competition would force parties to adopt priorities that reflect the voters' true concerns. In reality, parties can run their campaigns in such a way as to manipulate voters' priorities. This phenomenon, known...

Monetary valuation techniques are often used for evaluating the effect of a change in ecosystem services on components of human wellbeing, even though they face several drawbacks. This paper seeks to reconcile monetary valuation techniques with methods that address ecosystem-economy interactions...

Why do some countries adopt exogenous rules into their domestic law when those laws do not align with the country’s specific interests? This article draws on the policy diffusion literature to identify four causal mechanisms that are hypothesized to give rise to those transplants in the case...

The paper tries to convey the idea that choosing a winner among a group of nominees or short-listed candidates may hurt those who bestow prizes, those who are selected, as well as those who base their own choices on the ranking. We base our observations on examples of contests (movies,...

This paper shows that electoral incentives deter politicians from supporting trade liberalization. We focus on all major trade liberalization bills introduced since the early 1970s in the U.S. Congress, in which House and Senate members serve respectively two- and six-year terms and one third of...

The article illustrates the formation over time of the late 20th century canons of two schools that dominated all other European schools in their time: Italian Renaissance and Flemish Realism. Since most artists were discussed some 400 years ago, by Vasari in the second edition of his Vite and...