This article provides the first comparison of public sector efficiency in and beyond transition. We compare the comprehensive efficiency scores of 202 local governments in the Czech Republic in the transition period of 1995-1998 and the post-transition period of 2005-2008 and identify the...

In this paper we examine a class of local crimes that involve perfectly mobile criminals, and perfectly immobile criminal opportunities. We focus on local non-rival crime deterrence that is more efficient against criminals pursuing domestic crimes than criminals pursuing crimes elsewhere. In a...

Local expenditures in neighbouring municipalities can be spatially interdependent due to spillovers, cooperation effects, competition effects or mimicking. In this paper, we aim to test the spatial interdependence of local public expenditures using data on 205 Czech municipalities. We found...

The paper estimates cost efficiency of 99 general hospitals in the Czech Republic during 2001–2008 using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis. We control for determinants of the inefficiency and found that bigger, not-for-profit and teaching hospitals tend to be less efficient, as well as...

The paper estimates cost efficiency of 99 general hospitals in the Czech Republic during 2001–2008 using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis. We control for determinants of the inefficiency and found that bigger, not-for-profit and teaching hospitals tend to be less efficient, as well as...

The paper estimates cost efficiency of 99 general hospitals in the Czech Republic during 2001-2008 using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. We estimate a baseline model and also a model accounting for various inefficiency determinants. Group-specific inefficiency is present even having taken care of...

We extend a model of wasteful state aid in Dewatripont and Seabright (2006, Journal of the European Economic Association 4, 513–522) by a supranational controlling authority. The model combines moral hazard and adverse selection to show that politicians fund wasteful projects to signal their...

In the fields of social choice, public choice and political economics, the main difference between private and political choice is whether individual preferences are aggregated to make a decision. A much less studied difference is whether beliefs are aggregated to make a decision. In this paper,...

In this article, we analyse initiatives organized by groups outside of formal politics that involve political confrontation with elected officials, and the need for recourse to the courts. We show that a civic initiative submitted by a proposer gives the voter not only the option to constrain...

We model `money buys access' informational lobbying as a commitment from the policy-maker to observe a lobby's verifiable evidence only upon receiving an access fee. We specifically examine the policy-maker's optimal access fees in the presence of two strictly competing lobbies. Our novel method...