This paper presents a positive theory of centralization of political decisions in an international union. My central claim is that lobbies play a role in determining the assignment of competencies to the union because their power of influence can increase or decrease under centralization. I show...

We exploit election-driven turnover in State and local governments in Germany to study how banks adjust their securities portfolios in response to the loss of political connections. We find that local savings banks, which are owned by their host county and supervised by local politicians,...

The objective of this paper is to investigate which factors - macroeconomic, policy - related or institutional - foster the implementation of structural reforms. To this objective, we look at episodes of structural reforms over three decades across 40 OECD and EU countries and link them to such...

The objective of this paper is to investigate which factors ‐ macroeconomic, policy‐related or institutional ‐ foster the implementation of structural reforms. To this objective, we look at episodes of structural reforms over three decades across 40 OECD and EU countries and link them to...

We exploit election-driven turnover in State and local governments in Germany to study how banks adjust their securities portfolios in response to the loss of political connections. We find that local savings banks, which are owned by their host county and supervised by local politicians,...

This paper investigates the main determinants of economic performance in the EU from a regional perspective, covering 253 regions over the period 2001-2008. In addition to the traditional determinants of economic performance, measured by GDP per capita, the analysis accounts for spatial effects...

This paper investigates inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering all the years from 1999 to 2005. Findings show the existence of large wage differentials among workers with the same observed characteristics...

We found that on average over the period from 1989 to 2007, 21 percent of American households at a given point of time received a wealth transfer and these accounted for 23 percent of their net worth. Over the lifetime, about 30 percent of households could expect to receive a wealth transfer and...

We study taxable wealth in unique Swedish administrative data, annually following a large sample of households over a period of almost 40 years. The main data limitation is non-observability of wealth for those below the tax exemption level. This implies that much of the focus of the paper is on...

This paper analyses the existence of an immigrant/native wealth gap by using household survey data for Luxembourg, Germany and Italy. The results show that, in all three countries, a sizeable wealth gap exists between natives and immigrants. Towards the upper tail of the wealth distribution the...