This paper introduces new data on the term in office of central bank governors in 137 countries for 1970-2004. Our panel models show that the probability that a central bank governor is replaced in a particular year is positively related to the share of the term in office elapsed, political and...

Grüner (2010) argues that the introduction of the European Monetary Union (EMU) led to lower wage growth and lower unemployment in participating countries. According to Grüner, monetary centralization increases the amplitude of national business cycles, which leads to higher unemployment risk....

We provide empirical evidence on the influence of income taxes on the choice of residence of taxpayers at the local government level. The fact that Swiss communities can independently set tax multipliers, thereby shifting the progressive tax scheme that is fixed at the cantonal (state) level,...

We investigate empirically changes in voting in the United Nations General Assembly consequent to leader turnovers over the 1985–2008 period and find evidence that governments with new rulers are more supportive of the United States on important votes. We consider the explanations that might...

A long tradition in economics explores the association between the quality of formal institutions and economic performance. The literature on the relationship between such institutions and happiness is, however, rather limited, and inconclusive. In this paper, we revisit the findings from recent...