James Buchanan pioneered the political economics of public debt 60 years ago. In this paper, we contrast his thinking of the burden of debt, the public choice mechanisms that lead to excessive debt and the demand for constitutional restraints on public debt with its development, its...

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be mitigated by different...

The paper investigates the fiscal effects of Swiss cantonal debt brakes by taking explicitly into account the rules' coverage. An in-depth analysis provides unique evidence that suggests the following: First, fiscal rules at the cantonal level have a negative effect on public deficits, which is...

We investigate the political determinants of risk premiums which sub-national governments in Switzerland have to pay for their sovereign bond emissions. For this purpose we analyse financial market data from 288 tradable cantonal bonds in the period from 1981 to 2007. Our main focus is on two...

We investigate the political determinants of risk premiums which sub-national governments in Switzerland have to pay for their sovereign bond emissions. For this purpose we analyze financial market data from 288 tradable cantonal bonds in the period from 1981 to 2007. Our main focus is on two...

With an outstandingly long data set of Swiss cantonal public finances we study whether the Swiss subnational level runs sustainable fiscal policies. Going back to the year 1905, we test for stationarity of cantonal public debt, revenue and spending and for cointegration between cantonal revenues...