In the aftermath of elections or ballots, the legitimacy of the result is regularly debated if voter turnout was considered to be low. Hence, discussions about legal reforms to increase turnout are common in most democracies. We analyze the impact of a very small change in voting costs on voter...

We aim to estimate the elasticity of voter turnout. We analyze how voters react to a change in voting costs. Some municipalities in the canton of Berne reduced voting costs by paying the postage of the return envelope when voters opt for postal voting. We find that paying the postage is...

The ability of voters to use the available electoral instruments is crucial for the functioning of democracies. The paper shows that voters consider the institutional environment when making electoral decisions. Voters recognize that executives who face binding term limits (i.e., "lame ducks")...

Divided government is not only the outcome of moderate voters’ electoral decision to balance party ideology in government, but a more general reaction of voters to a systematic control problem. Voters realize that term limited executives (i.e., “lame ducks”) cannot be held accountable due...

The ability of voters to use the available electoral instruments is crucial for the functioning of democracies. The paper shows that voters consider the institutional environment when making electoral decisions. Voters recognize that executives who face binding term limits (i.e., lame ducks)...

In this paper, we present and illustrate novel data on more than a century of regulation in Switzerland. We provide quantitative measures for Swiss cantons on the annual stock of legally binding rules from 2006-2013 and on regulatory activity as reflected in the annual changes to such regulation...

We study the impact of a one-off exogenous fiscal windfall on local public finances in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland. The windfall was due to the IPO of Glencore on the London Stock Exchange in 2011. As a result, its CEO paid an extraordinary tax bill of approximately CHF 360 million....

We propose a novel approach for causal mediation analysis based on changes-in-changes assumptions restricting unobserved heterogeneity over time. This allows disentangling the causal effect of a binary treatment on a continuous outcome into an indirect effect operating through a binary...

Public auditors should reduce agency problems and improve transparency. We address the question of whether auditors should be elected by the citizens or appointed by either the legislature or the executive, and explore the influence of conducting performance audits. We construct a unique dataset...

Corporate auditors review and evaluate financial statements. To enhance independence the selection process and mandatory auditor rotation requirements have been debated intensively. The available empirical evidence is not conclusive and suffers from serious endogeneity problems. We propose...