This database was created in the context of the project "Ämterwettbewerb, Qualitiät von Politikern und fiskalische Performance - Eine empirische Analyse deutscher Kommunen", running from September 2012 until February 2015. The project members gratefully acknowledge the financial support from...

An important question in representative democracies is how to ensure that politicians behave in the best interest of citizens rather than their own private interests. Aside from elections, one of the few institutional devices available to regulate the actions of politicians is their pay...

In this paper we investigate the effect of family connections to politicians on individuals' labor market outcomes. We combine data for Italy over almost three decades from longitudinal social security records on a random sample of around 1 million private sector employees with the universe of...

In this paper we investigate the effect of family connections to politicians on individuals' labor market outcomes. We combine data for Italy over almost three decades from longitudinal social security records on a random sample of around 1 million private sector employees with the universe of...

Africa's quest to achieving improved health status and meeting the Millennium Development Goals targets cannot be effectively achieved without examining the quality of leadership, transitions and regimes and how they impact on the decisions and the policy effectiveness that bring about improved...

We develop a model of policymaking in which a politician decides how much expertise to acquire or how informed to become about issues before interest groups engage in monetary lobbying. For a range of issues, the policymaker prefers to remain clueless about the merits of reform, even when...

Balance the budgets of the world -- To set the world aright -- The established rules of decency -- Salvaging the human element in all of us -- A man in the treasury -- A real central bank -- Our best gun -- The New Deal recession -- A drop at a time