We develop a theory of social planning with a concern for economic coercion, which we define as the difference between consumers’ actual utility, and the “counterfactual” utility they expect to obtain if they were able to set policy themselves. Reasons to limit economic coercion include...

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...

This paper presents new evidence about privatisation processes and their determinants from a panel of 34 countries over the 1977-99 period. The empirical analysis shows that privatisation takes place typically in wealthy and democratic countries, endowed with deep and liquid stock markets, and...

Demographic change in industrial countries will influence educational spending in potentially two ways. On the one hand, the decline in the number of school-age children should alleviate the financial pressure. On the other hand, the theoretical/empirical literature has established that the...

Empirical research has given cause to fear that the demographic ageing in industrialized countries is likely to exert a negative impact on educational spending. These papers have linked the share of the elderly with the per capita or per pupil spending on education at the local, state-wide or...

This is Part 1 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...

This is Part 2 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...

Economic research shows that candidates have a higher chance of getting (re-)elected when they have the luck that the world economy does well even though this is beyond their control and unrelated to their competence. Psychological research demonstrates that candidates increase their chances if...

Over 10 years ago, Feld and Voigt (2003) introduced the first indicator for objectively meas-uring the actual independence of the judiciary and demonstrated its utility in a large cross-section of countries. The indicator has been widely used, but also criticized. This paper pre-sents more...

The theoretical literature on the economics of fiscal federalism has identified several potential effects of government decentralization on economic growth. Much of the traditional literature focuses on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision of public services. However,...