This paper introduces harassment in a model of bribery and corruption. We characterize the harassment equilibrium and show that taxpayers with all possible levels of income participate in such an equilibrium. Harassment has a regressive bias. Harassment cost as such may not affect tax revenue....

This paper examines how skill-biased growth can generate economic fragmentation (income disparities) that give rise to social fragmentation (the adoption of increasingly incompatible social identities and values), which generate political fragmentation (the adoption of increasingly incompatible...

This paper describes the role of government ideology on economic policy-making in the United States. I consider studies using data for the national, state and local level and elaborate on checks and balances, especially divided government, measurement of government ideology and empirical...

This paper develops a small open economy (SOE) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that helps to explain business cycle synchronization between an emerging market and advanced economies. The model captures the specificities of both economies (e.g. primary commodity,...

This paper proposes a simple partial equilibrium model to investigate the effects of government policy on venture capital backed investments. Giving up an alternative career, entrepreneurs focus their effort on a single, high risk venture each. Venture capitalists acquire an equity stake and...

The on-going "Make in India" campaign aims at manufacturing revival. Its characteristics resemble East Asian industrial reform and growth policies based on the flying-geese model which highlights "step-by-step" changes in a country's specialisation pattern and global competitiveness accompanied...

Higher economic growth was generated during Democratic presidencies compared to Republican presidencies in the United States. The question is why. Blinder and Watson (2016) explain that the Democratic-Republican presidential growth gap (D-R growth gap) can hardly be attributed to the policies...

We examine whether government ideology was correlated with the growth in military expenditure in Germany over the period 1951-2011. By using various measures of government ideology, the results do not show any effect. The exception is an ideology measure based on the Comparative Manifesto...

Economists, and also economic research institutes, differ in their attitudes towards desirability of economic policies. The policy positions taken can often be determined by ideology. We examine economic policy positions by investigating minority votes in the Joint Economic Forecast of German...

German policy during the Eurozone crisis supposedly follows an ordoliberal tradition. In this paper, we discuss to what extent this contention holds and to what extent Germany pragmatically responded to different crisis phenomena. A proper analysis of ordoliberal thinking reveals that the...