As by product of economic growth, jobs are indeed transformational. In other words, efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do (as more productive jobs appear and less productive one disappear). In fact societies flourish as jobs bring together people from different ethnic and...

The theory of social choice stresses that the general interest determined through the aggregation of individual preferences implies interpersonal utility comparisons and hence necessarily a notion of common good beyond individual preferences. The pursuit of the common good falls to all services...

Good governance has become a prominent topic on the development agendas of national governments, regional institutions and international organisations. There is common understanding that it is an imperative for development. This article discusses two success stories, those of Finland and...

This paper analyses whether large governments in Europe reflect efficient responses to a changing social and economic environment (‘welfare economic view’) as opposed to wasteful spending (‘public choice view’). To this end, the effect of government size on subjective well-being is...

An examination of how increased turnover among legislators in the fifty U.S. states affects fiscal policy and economic growth finds that it makes legislators short-sighted. Turnover increases the size of government by increasing the shares of both total spending and taxes in income. In...

Political polarization combined with political turnover have been shown to amplify economic fluctuations (Azzimonti and Talbert, 2014). This paper analyzes a fiscal policy institution capable of reducing the volatility caused by these political frictions. We introduce the distinction between...

Defining the welfare state is not a simpleminded task. Actually, there are numerous definitions which try to reflect at least some of the basic characteristics of the welfare state or its objectives and its functions. For some, there is primarily an institutional parameter, for others there are...

Technology is changing our world at an astonishing pace. One of the features of technological development is its great contribution to enhance e-governance. E-governance is introduced as a mean to reduce costs, improve services for citizens and increase effectiveness and efficiency of the public...

People expect the state to create jobs and provide them with a social security net. Whatever its defects, whatever the virtues of the private sector, no structure other than the state can today provide citizens with the basic public goods. Under the present right-wing government of Nea...