Using a new database of French municipalities that covers 821 towns and 2 elections (2001 and 2008), we examine how the budget structure, degree of electoral competition and the economic context affect the share of votes for the incumbent. We assess the specicities created by the two-round...

This research looks at the determinants of the adoption of the school-rhythm reform by French municipalities. The possibility opened to mayors to adopt the reform sooner (2013) or later (2014) offers the opportunity to measure how much the interests of the children have weighted on the decision....

We show that voters are fiscal conservatives, although in the long run only: while the average (over the mandate) level of debt has a negative impact on the probability of reelection, pre-election debt accumulation by incumbents increases their probability of reelection. As the negative impact...

We contrast the influence of demography and central bank independence on inflation. The recent demographic trends in developed countries are shown to weight more on inflation than central bank independence, while the contrary stands for the period from 1960 to 1979.

This note considers the foundations of the Federal Reserve Board's independence. Its origins are shown to reside in the American political philosophy, under which independence is an essential working condition for a perennial democracy.

This paper disentangles between two hypotheses on the determinants of Australia's and the US' average tariffs levels. Relying on historical data that covers a century (1904 to 2005), it is first shown that a break in the series occurs in 1947, forcing to separate the data into two sub-periods...

This paper disentangles between two hypotheses on the determinants of Australia's and the US' average tariffs levels. Relying on historical data that covers a century (1904 to 2005), it is first shown that a break in the series occurs in 1947, forcing to separate the data into two sub-periods...

I develop an agent-based computational economics (ACE) model with which I evaluate the aggregate impact of labor market policies. The findings are that government-financed training measures increase the outflow rate from unemployment to employment. Although the overall effect is positive this...