De jure judicial independence (JI) is the single most important predictor of de facto JI. In this paper, we describe under what conditions countries are likely to include JI in their constitutions. We describe and analyze both their original choice in this regard as well as change over time...

This paper investigates whether the socioeconomic status of the head of government helps explain fiscal performance. Applying sociological research that attributes differences in people's ways of thinking and acting to their relative standing within society, we test whether the social status of...

This paper investigates whether the socioeconomic status of the head of government helps explain fiscal performance. Applying sociological research that attributes differences in people's ways of thinking and acting to their relative standing within society, we test whether the social status of...

To analyse the interdependence between monetary and fiscal policy during a financial crisis, we develop an open-economy DSGE model with monetary and fiscal policy as well as financial markets in a continuous-time framework based on stochastic differential equations. Monetary policy is modelled...

The poor state of public finances in many countries has led to calls for fiscal consolidation. In practice, implementing concrete consolidation measures appears to meet with public resistance, suggesting that the success of consolidation efforts strongly depends on the popularity of the chosen...

We empirically examine how complexity of ECB communications affects financial market trading based on high-frequency data from European stock index futures trading. Our sam-ple covers ECB press conferences between January 2009 and December 2017, during which unconventional monetary policy...

This paper provides an analysis of the convergence pattern of German housing prices and rents employing a new dataset that covers all the country’s administrative districts. In addition to conventional tests for 𝛽-convergence and 𝜎-convergence, we apply Phillips and Sul’s (2007)...

Using a randomized controlled trial in a 2018 survey of a representative sample of the German population, we study whether providing information about the European Central Bank’s (ECB) inflation record in comparison to its inflation target affects people’s trust in the central bank. In the...

This paper empirically analyses the relationship between political leaders’ socioeconomic backgrounds and public budget deficits utilising panel data on 21 OECD countries from 1980 to 2008. Building on sociological, as well as economic, research, we argue that the socioeconomic status of...

We examine determinants of the composition of public expenditure in the German Laender (states) over the period 1992–2008, as the Laender exhibit a high degree of institutional and political homogeneity and are endowed with extensive fiscal competences. Our prime contribution is an...