Provided that the literature on the deterrent effect of capital punishment is overall inconclusive, the fact that individual authors persistently claim to have found solid evidence in one or the other direction raises two questions. Firstly, what are the causes for these different results? Do...

This article contributes to the literature on stock market integration by developing and estimating a capital asset pricing model with segmentation effects in order to assess stock market segmentation and its effects on risk premia at the regional level. We show that the estimated degrees of...

Using data of Swiss referenda from 1981 to 1999, this paper presents new empirical results which allow us to discriminate better between the decision and mobilisation hypotheses of electoral participation. First, theoretical considerations which lead to these hypotheses are presented as well as...

Tax competition is supposed to lead to inefficiencies in the provision of public goods and difficulties for decentralized redistribution. A necessary condition for these ef fects to occur is that residence and location decisions are determined by fiscal considerations. In this paper, the impact...

In this paper, the introduction of direct-democratic decision-making in all EU decisions is considered when it is feasible without prohibitively increasing decision-making costs. We start with the contractarian argument that each constitution is a contract joining the citizens of a state and...

The weak rationality principle is not an empirical statement but a heuristic rule of how to proceed in social sciences. It is a necessary ingredient of any ‘understanding’ social science in the Weberian sense. In this paper, first this principle and its role in economic theorizing is...

We first show three major disagreements among today’s leading economists: the minimum wage, the effects of large government debt and the politics of the European Central Bank. Using a prominent and highly relevant example, the possible deterrent effect of death penalty, we demonstrate how...

First the assumption of self-interest as applied in Economics is presented. Here we also discuss areas in which (many) people behave less self- but more other-regarding than traditional economic models assume. Then, greedy behaviour is considered as existing in the political and economic...

Paternalism is an attempt to influence individuals’ decisions for their own benefit, even if there are no third parties involved. This seems to contradict normative individualism, which provides the general orientation to our modern democracies. Soft or libertarian paternalism accepts the...

The impact of corporate income taxes on location decisions of firms is widely debated in the tax competition literature. Tax rate differences across jurisdictions may lead to distortions of firms’ investment decisions. Empirical evidence on tax induced relocation and subsequent economic...