We survey the theoretical literature on privatization and efficiency by tracing its evolution from the applications of agency theory to recent contributions in the field of political economy. The first ones extend the theory of regulation with incomplete information to address privatization...

This paper presents an application of a multi-attribute aggregation methodology to the construction of a sustainability index. Sustainability is a multi-faceted issue, in which synergies or conflicts may arise among the different components, thus making it a complex concept to which multi...

Composite indicators are becoming increasingly infuential tools of environmental assessment and advocacy. Nonetheless, their use is controversial as they often rely on ad-hoc and theoretically problematic assumptions regarding normalization, aggregation, and weighting. Nonparametric data...

This paper provides a comparative analysis of statistical methods to evaluate the consumer perception about the quality of Services of General Interest. The evaluation of the service quality perceived by users is usually based on Customer Satisfaction Survey data and an ex-post evaluation is...

This study analyzes energy intensity trends and drivers in 40 major economies using the WIOD database, a novel harmonized and consistent dataset of input-output table time series accompanied by environmental satellite data. We use logarithmic mean Divisia index decomposition to (1) study trends...

This paper presents an application of a multi-attribute aggregation methodology to the construction of a sustainability index. Sustainability is a multi-faceted issue, in which synergies or conflicts may arise among the different components, thus making it a complex concept to which multi...

Using a natural voting experiment in Switzerland that encompasses a 160-year period (1848–2009), we investigate whether a higher level of complexity leads to increased reliance on expert knowledge. We find that when more referenda are held on the same day, constituents are more likely to refer...

We propose a two dimensional infinite horizon model of public consumption in which investments are decided by a winner-take-all election. Investments in the two public goods create a linkage across periods and parties have different specialities. We show that the incumbent party vote share...

We consider the class of proper monotonic simple games and study coalition formation when an exogenous share vector and a solution concept are combined to guide the distribution of coalitional worth. Using a multiplicative composite solution, we induce players' preferences over coalitions in a...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the role of political institutions in privatization. The empirical testing relies on a new political database with continuous and time-varying measures of the political-institutional setting, and of the partisan orientation of the executive. Using...