This paper investigates empirically the influence of government ideology on social policy using German data. Examining the funding and the benefits of social security and public healthcare policy, my results suggest that policies implemented by governments dominated by left- and rightwing...

This paper examines whether government ideology influenced economic freedom across the German states. The results show that in former West Germany rightwing governments promoted economic freedom, whereas leftwing governments confined it. In former East Germany, however, rightwing governments...

This paper examines whether government ideology has influenced the allocation of public expenditures in OECD countries. I analyze two datasets that report different expenditure categories and cover the time periods 1970-1997 and 1990-2006, respectively. The results suggest that government...

This paper examines whether government ideology has influenced monetary policy in OECD countries. We use quarterly data in the 1980.1-2005.4 period and exclude EMU countries. Our Taylor-rule specification focuses on the interactions of a new time-variant index of central bank independence with...