This paper adopts transaction costs perspective to explain why growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may vary across regions of an emerging economy. Furthermore, it is argued that young and small firms gain more from improvement of local governance than old and large firms do. In...

In their role as agenda setters and implementers of political decisions, bureaucrats potentially have the power to influence decisions in their own favor. It is however difficult to empirically test whether bureaucrats actually are involved in such actions. In this paper we suggest and apply a...

The effectiveness of public funds in increasing public employment has long been a question on public and labor economists' minds. In most federal countries local governments employ large fractions of the working population, meaning that a tool for stimulating local public employment can...