This paper is intended to provide an assessment of the impact of the silent revolution of the last three decades on moving governments closer to people to establish fair, accountable, incorruptible and responsive governance. To accomplish this, a unique data set is constructed for 182 countries...

The primary objective in the one-dimensional cutting stock problem is to minimize material cost. In real applications it is often necessary to consider auxiliary objectives, one of which is to reduce the number of different cutting patterns (setups). This paper first presents an integer linear...

This paper provides a unique data set on local governance. This dataset measures government decisionmaking at the local level, i.e. the level of government closest to the people. By contrast, the existing literature has focused on decisionmaking at the sub-national level. The data set covers 182...

Some countries fail to ensure that their citizens and businesses make an appropriate contribution to the financing of public tasks. But not all countries with a low tax ratio automatically fall into this category. This paper presents an approach to bridge the gap between probabilistic statements...