This paper first formulates a model of how the politicians in a local government collectively lobby to raise intergovernmental grants to their local government. The model identifies a relationship between council size and grants received. I then study this relationship empirically using the...

In this paper, we look into the so-called "revolving door of Washington", which is the movement of individuals between federal government positions and jobs in the private sector, and examine its link to long-run stock returns. We find that firms where current public officials become future...

This paper addresses the effects of the revolving door phenomenon on the inequality of influence among firms. It shows that firms are not equal in their capacities to benefit from state connections. We first develop a theoretical model introducing the notion of "bureaucratic capital" and showing...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the causes and effects of arbitrariness in the peer review process. This paper focuses on two main reasons for the arbitrariness in peer review. The first is that referees are not homogenous and display homophily in their taste and perception of innovative...

In this paper, we test one of the fundamental assumptions in the tax competition literature, namely, that a country's taxable income depends on the tax policies pursued in the domestic and in neighbouring countries. Based on a panel of annual data of 14 Western European countries spanning the...

We study fiscal spending by supranational unions, where participation is voluntary and countries bargain over contributions to and the allocation of a central budget. We establish and explore the link between the budget's allocation and nations' contributions that occurs since bargaining power...

Theory suggests that relations between authorities affect implementation. This article studies the link between central and local government agencies in the Swedish labour market sector. The analysis is based on new quantitative data. The results indicate that central and local government...

This study tests for strategic competition in public spending on childcare and primary education, and care for the elderly, using panel data on Swedish municipalities over 1996-2005. The high degree of decentralization in the organization of the public sector implies that Swedish data is highly...

This paper contributes to the small empirical literature that attempts to estimate tax reaction functions of national governments competing with other national governments. After presenting a simple theoretical model, we estimate reaction functions for European countries for a pure Nash model...

Under most U.S. environmental regulations, the federal government shares responsibility with the states by authorizing them to implement and enforce federal policies. Authorization provides states with considerable discretion over the effects of regulation and is perhaps the most significant...