»Sparen« oder »Wachstum«: Dies seien die alternativen Wirtschaftspolitiken, zwischen denen Politiker gegenwärtig wählen könnten. Hans-Werner Sinn und Niklas Potrafke zeigen, dass eine solche Alternative die Öffentlichkeit in die Irre führt. Zusätzliche Staatsausgaben zur...

Hans-Werner Sinn hat wie kein anderer in den letzten Jahrzehnten die wirtschafts- und sozialpolitischen Debatten in Deutschland und Europa geprägt. Er gilt als einer der wichtigsten Köpfe der Bundesrepublik und als einflussreichster Ökonom im deutschsprachigen Raum, seine Leistungen auf der...

By examining voting behavior in a referendum on the construction of a concert hall in Germany, I show that political ideology influences cultural policy. The results suggest that resistance to the concert hall was particularly strong in electoral districts in which majorities of citizens vote...

I investigate minority votes in the German Council of Economic Experts. The dataset contains information on the voting behavior of the council members over the period 1971-2011. The results show that the best predictor of minority voting is being nominated by the trade unions: a council member...

I test if parties matter with respect to the allocation of public expenditures in Germany. Considering the allocation of rights and duties due to the federal structure, two econometric models are estimated. First, a SURE model analyses spending at the federal level for the period from 1950 to...

This paper examines how politicians influenced social security policy in Germany. Using yearly data from the German Pension Insurance from 1957 to 2005, revenues as well as expenditures are analysed in linear regression models, respectively. In accordance with opportunistic political behaviour,...