The empirical literature shows that incumbent politicians move expenditure from one budget item to another before elections and under different electoral systems in order to capture voter consensus and gain re-election. However, little attention has been paid to measurement of the degree of...

In order to evaluate a fiscal common-pool problem, this paper focuses on the relationship between local government council size and its expenditure. Generally, local councilors internalize the benefit of public projects targeted at their political jurisdictions, but underestimate and prefer to...

Public theatres and operas in Germany currently receive an annual funding of 2 – 2,5 billion Euros by the German Laender and municipalities. The presented monograph shows that this special kind of cultural subsidy can be traced back to the Late Middle Ages, and that theatres and operas have...

This study explores the flypaper effect in Indonesia using a spatial approach. Covering data from 2000-2014, the paper shows that grants stimulate overspending by local governments even though spatial interdependence is carefully treated. The elasticity of lump-sum grants to expenditure is...

The paper presents a test of the relationship between rational political cycles with the government spending behavior and its efficiency by using extensive data set of whole Indonesian municipalities/cities from 2008-2014. The results show that politicians/local leaders in Indonesia tend to...

This study explores the flypaper effect in Indonesia using a spatial approach. Covering data from 2000-2014, the paper shows that grants stimulate overspending by local governments even though spatial interdependence is carefully treated. The elasticity of lump-sum grants to expenditure is...

Which are the determinants of the choice of ownership structure for a firm providing local public services? What are the consequences of this choice on the performance of these firms? To answer these questions we will use a unique database providing economic and financial data on 321 Italian...