The paper presents empirical findings regarding the economic policy consequences of constitutional arrangements, in three different dimensions. First, the data are consistent with several theoretical predictions about the consequences of electoral rules and forms of government for fiscal policy...

Does democracy promote economic development? We review recent attempts to address this question, which exploit the within-country variation associated with historical transitions in and out of democracy. The answer is positive, but depends -- in a subtle way -- on the details of democratic...

Is corruption systematically related to electoral rules? A number of studies have tried to uncover economic and social determinants of corruption but, as far as we know, nobody has yet empirically investigated how electoral systems ináuence corruption. We try to address this lacuna in the...

This paper demonstrates how time consistency of the Ramsey policy - the optimal fiscal and monetary policy under commitment - can be achieved. Each government should leave its successor with a unique maturity structure for the nominal and indexed debt, such that the marginal benefit of a...

This paper develops a simple general equilibrium model of a monetary economy with a capital market, in which monetary demand arises from a "cash-in-advance" constraint rather than from any direct role in the utility function. Uncertainty gives rise to a meaningful portfolio choice between money...