This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <A href="http://wber.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/08/25/wber.lhu005.abstract?sid=a3f17f9e-0c3c-403b-87cc-14b5eebc2752">'The World Bank Economic Review'</A>, forthcoming.<P> Support for economic reforms has often shown puzzling dynamics: there are many examples of reforms that started off successfully but nevertheless lost public support, and vice versa. We show that...</p></a>

This paper estimates Nash-type fiscal reaction functions for European governments competing for revenue from diesel excises. It appears that European governments strategically set their excise levels by responding to their neighbors’ tax rates. This provides evidence for the presence of tax...

This paper analyzes enhanced cooperation agreements in corporate taxation in a three country tax competition model where countries differ in size. We characterize equilibrium tax rates and the optimal tax responses due to the formation of an enhanced cooperation agreement. Conditions for...

This paper analytically derives the conditions under which the slope of the tax reaction function is negative in a classical tax competition model. If countries maximize welfare, we show that a negative slope (reflecting strategic substitutability) occurs under relatively mild conditions....

Which ways and means are available for the macroeconomic and fiscal coordination and/or integration within the EMU-framework? Which are the pros and cons of these scenarios? This paper combines economic theory, empirical analysis and insights regarding EMU’s institutional history in order to...

Power index research has been a very active field in the last decades. Will this continue or are all the important questions solved? We argue that there are still many opportunities to conduct useful research with and on power indices. Positive and normative questions keep calling for...

Transparent decision-making processes are widely regarded as a prerequisite for the working of a representative democracy. It facilitates accountability, and citizens may suspect that decisions, if taken behind closed doors, do not promote their interests. Why else the secrecy? We provide a...

We explore how public opinion polls affect candidates' campaign spending in political competition. Generally, polls lead to (more) asymmetric behavior. Under a majority rule there always exists an equilibrium in which the initially more popular candidate invests more in the campaign and thereby...

We analyze general equilibrium relationships between trade policy and the household distribution of income, decomposing social welfare into real income level and variance components through Gini and Atkinson indexes. We embed these inequality-adjusted social welfare functions in a general...