Municipalities may have various motives for decisions on the mode of their task execution. Empirical studies – based on both public choice and transaction costs theory - have not yet provided a fully comprehensive explanation for municipal contracting out decisions. Therefore, we held...

Much attention has been paid to the influence of the institutional form of waste collection on costs. We extend this literature in three directions by including the unit-based pricing system. First, we show that unit-based pricing systems are more important from a cost-minimizing point of view...

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has become an established tool in comparative analyses of efficiency strategies in both the public and the private sector. The aim of this paper is to present and apply a newly developed, adjusted DEA model – emerging from a blend of a Distance Friction...

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 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...

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...

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...