Many countries are forging ahead with convenient balloting methods, in particular electronic and postal voting, in order to re-engage voters. In this paper, we test whether the cost reductions with postal voting increase turnout. The empirical analysis is based on a newly collected data set on...

Using a new data set on Swiss state and local governments from 1890 to today, we analyze how the adoption of proportional representation affects fiscal policy. We show that proportional systems shift spending toward broad goods (e.g. education and welfare benefits) but decrease spending on...

Using a new data set on Swiss state and local governments from 1890 to today, we analyze how the adoption of proportional representation affects fiscal policy. We show that proportional systems shift spending toward broad goods (e.g. education and welfare benefits) but decrease spending on...

Many countries are forging ahead with convenient balloting methods, in particular electronic and postal voting, in order to re-engage voters. In this paper, we test whether the cost reductions with postal voting increase turnout. The empirical analysis is based on a newly collected data set on...

Using a new data set on Swiss state and local governments from 1890 to today, we analyze how the adoption of proportional representation affects fiscal policy. We show that proportional systems shift spending toward broad goods (e.g. education and welfare benefits) but decrease spending on...

There has been a longstanding debate about the link between political representation and health. In this article, I provide novel evidence that electoral reforms that shifted from a majoritarian to a proportional system of voter representation generated substantive health benefits for the...

Using a new data set from 1890 to 2000, we estimate how the adoption of proportional representation affects policies in Swiss cantons. We show that proportional systems shift spending toward broad goods (e.g. education and welfare bene fits) but decrease spending on targetable goods (e.g. roads...

Power indices are mappings that quantify the influence of the members of a voting body on collective decisions a priori. Their nonlinearity and discontinuity makes it difficult to compute inverse images, i.e., to determine a voting system which induces a power distribution as close as possible...

The literature on fiscal institutions has established a connection between the design of fiscal institutions and a country’s political fundamentals. The paper includes a review of the party and electoral systems in the Central and Eastern European countries (the CEECs) and then reaches...