In many European countries established leftwing and rightwing parties have been threatened by policy convergence and, in turn, new populist parties that offer more polarized platforms. I investigate whether government ideology influences dragnet-controls - controls of persons conducted by the...

We examine how fiscal rules influence economic growth. The results show that constitutional fiscal rules promoted growth from the Industrial Revolution until World War II (1789-1950) and also increased modern economic growth (1985-2015). To address selection on unobservables, we conduct a...

I use new data on central and general governments for 23 OECD countries over the period 1960-2015 (unbalanced panel) to examine fiscal performance under minority governments. The results do not suggest that minority governments had higher fiscal deficits and public expenditure than majority...

Scholars have been active in investigating causes and consequences of austerity policies. We examine how economists use the term “austerity” in scientific studies and measure austerity in empirical analyses. The sample includes around 3,500 journal articles published in the top 400 journals...

We examine the extent to which government ideology has influenced monetary policy in OECD countries since the 1970s. In line with important changes in the global economy and differences across countries, regression results yield heterogeneous inferences depending on the time period and the...

We examine the extent to which government ideology has influenced monetary policy in OECD countries since the 1970s. In line with important changes in the global economy and differences across countries, regression results yield heterogeneous inferences depending on the time period and the...