Competing definitions of justice in Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics indicate the existence of two distinct economic systems with different normative priorities. The three-class society of the Platonic economy (guardians, auxiliaries, producers) gives rise to guardians who by virtue are...

We argue that a long-run cultural persistence of right-wing ideology can explain the recent rise of right-wing populism. Shifts in the supply of party platforms can interact with this existing demand, and give rise to patterns of historical persistence. We study the context of Germany in the...

To study how information about educational inequality affects public concerns and policy preferences, we devise survey experiments in representative samples of the German population. Providing information about the extent of educational inequality strongly increases concerns about educational...

We propose that false beliefs about the own current economic status are an important factor for explaining populist attitudes. Along with the subjects' receptiveness to right-wing populism, we elicit their perceived relative income positions in a representative survey of German households. We...

Can direct democracy provisions improve welfare over pure representative democracy? This paper studies how such provisions affect politicians' incentives and selection. While direct democracy allows citizens to correct politicians' mistakes, it also reduces the incentives of elected...

The standard assumption of exogenous policy preferences implies that parties set their positions according to their voters' preferences. We investigate the reverse effect: Are the electorates' policy preferences responsive to party positions? In a representative German survey, we inform...

Auditing institutions, such as the German Federal Court of Audit (BRH), provide information on public revenue and public spending. The question of how to increase tax compliance has been of frequent interest. Unfortunately, information from German taxpayers? declaration behaviour (beyond the...

Economic research suggests that investments in early education are generally more successful than investments at later ages. This paper presents a representative survey experiment on education spending in Germany, which exhibits low relative public spending on early education. Results are...

The Indonesian poultry industry is a key sector for the national economy, supplying 65% of all animal protein and employing 10% of the national labour force. All over the country, though local production successfully copes with domestic demand, the potential for growth is high, consistent with...

We examine the consequences of vote buying, assuming this practice were allowed and free of stigma. Two parties competing in a binary election may purchase votes in a sequential bidding game via up-front binding payments and/or campaign promises (platforms) that are contingent upon the outcome...