This paper examines Political Budget Cycles in federal systems, focusing on how a central incumbent allocates discretionary transfers across states in response to electoral incentives. We develop a theoretical model predicting that average discretionary transfers increase during federal election...

Im Herbst 2021 wurde das Gesetz zur ganztägigen Förderung von Kindern im Grundschulalter (Ganztagsförderungsgesetz - GaFöG ) verabschiedet. Damit haben Grundschulkinder, die im Jahr 2026 oder später in die erste Klasse kommen, bundesweit einen Rechtsanspruch auf eine Förderung im Umfang...

This study is an extended version of the case study included in the study on Multi-level governance structures in the EU enlargement countries. It presents a complete overview of the institutional decentralisation levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with tasks attributed at all levels of...

Federated Learning (FL) presents a promising approach to machine learning (ML) by allowing multiple sources of data (devices or entities) to collaboratively train a shared model while keeping data decentralised. This approach mitigates privacy risks as raw data remains locally on the sources,...

Bertrand's model of price duopoly with differentiated products is able to explain not only the behavior of walk-in customers, but also that of walk-in voters. The existence of a significant number of walk-in voters, in turn, explains a major characteristic of the so-called swing states in US...

This paper addresses the conceptual gap between the expected benefits of federalism in managing ethnicity-based conflict and its actual governance outcomes in the African context. One of the main reasons for this gap is the conflation of federalism with decentralization. In response, we develop...

Although reassignment of policy instruments among governments in many federations is a recurring event, there is no widely accepted, positive model of the phenomenon. This stands in contrast to the well established body of work on the normative theory of the efficient federal assignment. In this...

Ethnic federalism has long been a cornerstone of Ethiopia’s political system - and a recurrent source of violent conflict. Despite its centrality to the country’s governance and conflict dynamics, there is a notable absence of large-N quantitative research examining how exposure to violence...

The Swiss COVID-19 fiscal policy dataset includes detailed information on all fiscal support policies adopted in Switzerland in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Covering the period from February 2020 to February 2021, the dataset includes both quantitative and textual information about nine...

This federal Public Expenditure Review (PER) analyzes the key drivers of Pakistan's fiscal deficits and explores how the Federal Government can regain fiscal and debt sustainability, in accordance with the fiscal rules set forth in the FRDLA 2005. The report builds upon previous studies,...

Federalism is a constitutionalized version of multi-tier governance. Proponents of veto-player theory argue that a high number of veto players leads to a high degree of policy stability. Compared to states with a unitary structure, federal countries, in which at least one sub-central level of...

On 24 March 2024, presidential elections were held in Senegal, with opposition politician Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, who was 43 at the time, emerging as the winner. On 2 April 2024, he was sworn in as the fifth President of the Republic of Senegal. This event may mark a turning point in the...

Russia's attack on Ukraine has revealed the need to reassess Europe's security. Currently, the European Union is a politically fragmented and divided union of member states, economically underperforming, with a defense capability that is insufficient without the support of the USA. The European...

Against the backdrop of COP28, this paper investigates the impact of intergovernmental fiscal transfers (IGFT) on climate change commitments in India. Within the analytical framework of environmental federalism, we tested the evidence for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) using a panel model...

This report addresses the legal aspects of how the EU’s Cohesion Policy has changed over the past decade, exploring the legal argumentation behind its transformation. Cohesion Policy used to be understood as a policy with distinct features and clear limits, characterised by its focus on...