We investigate empirically the effect of government purchases on unemployment in 20 OECD countries, for the period 1960-2007. Compared to earlier studies we use a data set with more variation in unemployment, and which allows for controlling for a host of factors that influence the effect of...

The theory of tax smoothing and determination of public debt with uncertain future national income is extended for prudence. A prudent government deliberately underestimates future national income and the tax base, especially if the variance and persistence of shocks hitting the tax base are...

We use a panel of European countries to investigate whether or not governments interact with their neighbors when they decide their fiscal policy; we consider both taxes and expenditures, at aggregate and at separate aspects of policy. We analyse possible different competitive behaviours and...

Do budget institutions play a role in explaining why government effectiveness is higher in some advanced countries than in others? Employing an original panel dataset that spans four different years (1991, 2003, 2007 and 2012) we find that budget centralization has a negative and significant...

The Swedish Fiscal Policy Council (FPC) set up in 2007 is one example of the recent international trend to create independent fiscal watchdogs. The FPC has established itself as an important participant in the Swedish economic policy discussion. The FPC has small resources and a broad remit...

In the 1980s, many U.S. cities initiated programs reserving a proportion of government contracts for minority-owned businesses. The staggered introduction of these set-aside programs is used to estimate their impacts on the self-employment and employment rates of African-American men. Black...

Cost overrun is ubiquitous in public procurement. We argue that this can be the result of a constraint optimal award procedure when the procurer cannot commit not to renegotiate. If cost differences are more pronounced for more complex designs, it is optimal to fix a simple design ex ante and to...

Substantial elements of innovation have been observable during recent years in rig supply, in particular regarding contracts and organisation. This trend has been driven by the fact that rising costs over many years have put profitability under pressure. On the basis of theory and available...

We analyse procurement auctions in which sellers are distinguished on the basis of the ratios of quality per unit of money that they offer. Sellers are privately informed on the offered quality of the technology or good. We assume that the procurer cannot perfectly identify the best offer. Thus,...

Discriminatory programs that favor local and small firms in government procurement are common in many countries. This paper studies the long-run impact of procurement discrimination on market structure and future competition in industries where learning-by-doing makes incumbent firms more...