The distribution of income and wealth in Germany grew increasingly unequal until the beginning of the financial crisis. But inequality has not risen in either Germany or Switzerland since 2005. Nevertheless, Germans overestimate inequality. The German gap between reality and perception of...

Government accountability through electoral engagement, involvement and participation in the political debate can affect government performance. Using data for the full sample of Swiss cantons over the 1981–2001 period, this paper provides empirical evidence that government accountability...

Fiscal rules are mentioned as instruments to commit political actors on long-term fiscal sustainability. However, fiscal rules may have stronger effects on projected than on realized fiscal outcomes because of window-dressing measures or because they alter the bargaining situation in the budget...

Based on probit estimates, this paper analyzes the effects of fiscal consolidation on the proba-bility of sovereign defaults in the short run. Using a panel of 104 developing countries from 1980 to 2009 and controlling for various economic, fiscal and political factors, we find that fiscal...

Recent empirical literature has shown that the determination of intergovernmental grants is highly influenced by the political bargaining power of the recipient states. In these models federal politicians are assumed to buy the support of state voters, state politicians and state interest groups...

The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true...

There is a vast empirical literature investigating the relationship between government size and economic growth. But the empirical evidence of growth effects of public expenditure using cross-country regressions is still inconclusive. According to a number of authors this is not surprising since...

McCleary and Barro (2006) analyse whether Max Weber was right in emphasizing the religious impact on work ethic. They find a positive correlation between belief in hell and work ethic (p=0.098). They conclude that “Weber may have been right in emphasizing the religion link with work...