This paper presents a detailed analysis of voters’ responses to municipality and regional-level unemployment and economic growth, using panel data on 284 municipalities and 9 regions, covering Swedish general elections from 1982 to 2002. The preferred specification suggests that a reduction in...

In a recent review article Jonas Agell, Thomas Lindh and Henry Ohlsson (1997) claim that theoretical and empirical evidence does not allow any conclusion on whether there is a relationship between the rate of economic growth and the size of the public sector. They illustrate their conclusion...

A number of cross-country comparisons do not find a robust negative relationship between government size and economic growth. In part this may reflect the prediction in economic theory that a negative relationship should exist primarily for rich countries with large public sectors. In this paper...

The literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings. This conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and the countries studied. An alternative approach—of limiting the focus to studies of the...

Empirical studies of the relation between government size and economic growth come to widely different conclusions. In part this may reflect the fact that many studies report regressions that contain severe multicollinearity, heteroscedasticity, simultaneity and other specification problems....

In many countries, sickness absence financed by generous insurance benefits is an important concern in the policy debate. There are strong variations in absence behavior among local geographical areas. Such variations are difficult to explain in terms of observable socioeconomic factors. In this...

Many countries have undertaken central-bank independence reforms, but the years of implementation differ. What explains such differences in timing? This is of interest more broadly, as it sheds light on factors that matter for the speed at which economic reforms come about. We study a rich set...

This essay uses Edmund Phelps new book Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs,Challenge, and Change (Princeton University Press, 2013) as inspiration to discuss innovation and entrepreneurship. The book is laudable for its discussion of what constitutes a “good life”....

This paper estimates the intergenerational transmission of trust by studying second generation immigrants in 29 European countries with ancestry in 87 nations. There is significant transmission of trust on the mother’s side. The transmission is stronger in Northern Europe. Ancestry from more...

This paper finds evidence that more democratic political institutions increase trust. Second generation immigrants with ancestries from 115 countries are studied within 30 European countries. Comparing individuals born and residing in the same country, those whose father was born in a more...