This paper tests the consistency between the responsibility and the yardstick competition hypotheses. If no evidence is found that voters reelect mayors comparing their performance with those of neighboring jurisdictions, strategic interactions among municipalities cannot be properly interpreted...

Empirical research on the causal effect of government fragmentation derives diverse results. One reason for this diversity might be that studies are typically settled in a variety of institutional environments. To assess the extent to which the local political system might shape the effects of...

A long-standing issue in political economics is to what extent party control makes a difference in determining fiscal and economics policies. This question is very difficult to answer empirically because parties are not randomly selected to govern political entities. This article uses a...

Florian Dorn erstellte diesen Beitrag während seines Promotionsstudiums an der Universität München (LMU). Die Studie wurde im September 2020 abgeschlossen und von der Fakultät für Volkswirtschaftslehre als Dissertation angenommen. Die Dissertation trägt zur Empirie der Ökonomie des...

Adequate wages are an important tool to shield public officials from special interests and corruption. But what is the equilibrium effect of higher wages in the presence of criminal pressure groups, who use both bribes and violence? By means of a regression discontinuity design, we show that an...

This paper evaluates the role of a number of determinants of telecommunication services in the European Union. We use a logistic model with spatial covariates to estimate the demand function for telecommunications in the Union. Our results show that different types of interconnections generate...

The theory of political yardstick competition states that a comparison of public service levels and tax rates with those in nearby jurisdictions can provide voters with a useful instrument to assess politicians’ performance. However, we argue that fiscal disparities bias this yardstick, and...