Competition reduces rent extraction in private-sector firms. In this article, we empirically assess whether it similarly disciplines politicians by evaluating local-level governments' performance in Flanders. The results indicate that <italic>electoral</italic> competition -- measured via the number of parties...

The Weak Government Hypothesis states that government fragmentation leads to higher public deficits and debt. This relation can be explained by government inaction, common pool problems or the strategic use of debt that arise in coalition governments. Importantly, whereas government inaction...

Under instrumental voting closer elections are expected to have higher turnout. Under expressive voting, however, turnout may increase with decreasing closeness when voters have a preference for winners. An empirical test using data on Belgian municipal elections supports this. We find that...

This paper examines politicians' stated preferences on tax reforms which aim to bring about a given change in revenue. The paper starts from a simple framework inwhich politicians are vote maximisers, analyses how disequilibria may affect tax choices and considers possible asymmetries in...

This article analyzes how age grouping in youth competitions and soccer education programs affects wage formation at the professional level. A simple theoretical model shows that professional players born late after the cutoff date are expected to earn systematically higher wages than their...

This paper considers how tax structures in OECD countries change over time and how these changes are related to political fragmentation. Tax structures amongst OECD countries have become more uniform in the recent past (1965–1995) but it is less clear that this convergence satisfies...

This paper analyses whether and to what extent politicians manipulate tax structures strategically in order to win elections or for ideological purposes. We introduce an indicator for tax structure turbulence which measures the degree to which a country's tax structure changes from one year to...

This paper examines politicians' stated preferences on tax reforms which aim to bring about a given change in revenue. The paper starts from a simple framework in which politicians are vote maximisers, analyses how disequilibria may affect tax choices and considers possible asymmetries in...