Competition reduces rent extraction in private-sector firms. In this article, we empirically assess whether it similarly disciplines politicians by evaluating local-level governments' performance in Flanders. The results indicate that <italic>electoral</italic> competition -- measured via the number of parties...

This paper uses recent advances in the development of testable implications of the Cagan model of hyperinflation. It extends the range of candidate functional forms of the demand for real balances in hyperinflations to include nonstandard versions in which the absolute inflation elasticity is a...

Recent empirical work on US governments indicates an asymmetry in the flypaper effect: the elasticity of public spending with respect to changes in grants differs significantly for positive and negative changes. Using a panel of data on Flemish municipalities covering the period 1989-1996, we...

We analyse programmatic choices of Flemish theatres and examine how they are affected by the theatres' budgetary situation. Following Lancaster's characteristics approach, we identify several output characteristics of individual Flemish theatres during the period 1980 to 2000. A simultaneous...

Recent theoretical papers develop political agency models in which voters compare tax policy with that in neighbouring jurisdictions. In these yardstick competition models voters judge incumbents by comparing their policy with policy in neighbouring jurisdictions. This paper reports an analysis...

In this article, we investigate the cost efficiency of German local governments in the state of Baden-Württemberg in 2004 using a stochastic frontier approach. Besides being the first study on German data, we add two elements to the literature. First, we provide a comparative perspective,...