The article proposes an enabling mechanism for the creation, adjustment and dissolution of governmental units, giving autonomy to each individual as in a direct democracy. The mechanism is designed such that Pareto optimality is possible, in contrast to earlier models which make various...

Based on a panel data model this paper investigates whether the effects of fiscal policy on national saving in Europe have changed after the Maastricht Treaty came into force. Recently Giavazzi, Jappelli and Pagano (2000) found evidence that national saving responds nonlinearly to fiscal policy...

Germany’s system of economic and political governance strongly relies on group decision-making and consensus to solve economic issues. This approach relates to a wide spectrum of decisions, including the social partners with the trade unions and the employers’ associations in wage formation,...

This paper deals with the German government's proposal to Iiberalize the domestic electricity supply industry. The government bill aims to establish a retail wheeling model in the electricity transmission and distribution System. The Opposition against this model mainly comes from the publicly...

Six main characteristics of an economic order are discussed and empirically evaluated for the case of Slovenia. All of them pertain to the institutional setting ab urbe condita; they comprise the legal and jurisdictional situation, the role of private property, the institutionalised strive at...

The paper investigates the recent trends in privatization by local government organizations in Germany. It comes to the conclusion that the privatization policy has been two-directional: on the one hand, municipalities have reduced their economic activities, mainly by different forms of...

This paper deals with the efficiency characteristics of alternative governance structures in the electricity sector. The analysis begins with the description of some technical aspects of the electricity supply industry. The goal is to identify the main co-ordination tasks within, and between the...

This year legal activities were started which are meant to lead to a higher integration of the electricity supply industry in the European Union. It is intended to liberalize the national markets simultaneously restraining the influence of the national governments. This article provides an...