Abstract: Die Selektion öffentlicher Bediensteter in die Politik ist ein weitverbreitetes, jedoch kaum verstandenes Phänomen. Einerseits generiert die starke Vertretung öffentlicher Bediensteter in der Politik Interessenkonflikte und weckt Bedenken bezüglich des Gewaltenteilungsprinzips....

Traditional political economy has paid primary attention to the structuring of the principal-agent relationship between citizens and politicians and the role of competition and institutions in disciplining political agents. However, as the electoral control of politicians and the credibility of...

Senior officials in the ministerial bureaucracy are responsible for the coordination of public service activity and their number has grown enormously since World War II. We study the growth in employment of this politically sensitive high-profile occupational group from a political economics...

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic crisis as well as demographic and climate change pose major challenges for public finances. This article deals with the implications of demographic trends in Switzerland, i.e. the progressive ageing of the population and its impact on the country’s public...

Fiscal rules are argued to be important for sound and sustainable fiscal policies and have been increasingly adopted over the last 20 years. However, as increased fiscal pressure and fiscal risks urge countries to address the public debt legacy left by recent economic crises, fiscal rules come...

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public service and the legislature that emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concerns that the strong representation of public servants in many Western parliaments compromises the constitutionally proposed...

In this paper, we integrate the identity of legislators in a politico-economic analysis of parliamentary oversight whereby oversight activities depend on individual control costs and incentives. We focus on public servants selected into parliament who face a conflict of interests but also have...

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public administration and the legislature that emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concerns that the strong representation of bureaucrats in many Western parliaments compromises the constitutionally proposed...