We find that lottery tax windfalls finance higher state-government expenditures on supplemental security income that increase consumption, but only during bust periods. Wealth transfers from lottery winners to low income households enable fiscal policy to stabilize consumption during bust periods.

We match individual senators’ voting behavior on legislative proposals with 24 real referendum decisions on exactly the same issues with identical wording. This setting allows us to evaluate the median voter model’s quality with revealed constituents’ preferences. Results indicate a...

We test the effect of an important electoral reform implemented in Italy from 1993 to 2001, that moved the system for electing the Parliament from purely proportional to a plurality rule (for 75% of the seats). We do not find any effect on either the number of parties or the stability of...

I use a spatial Durbin model to estimate the effects of taxes on state economic growth. Results indicate that taxes have negative short-run and long-run own-state and spatial spillover effects on state growth.

This paper examines the effects of charter schools on student achievement at neighboring traditional schools. The study shows that charter school entry does not induce indirect impact on non-overlapping grades but generates positive direct impact on overlapping grades. I also demonstrate that...

Socially destructive behavior in a public good environment–like damaging public goods–is an underexposed phenomenon in economics. In an experiment we investigate whether such behavior can be influenced by the very nature of an environment. To that purpose we use a Fragile Public Good (FPG)...

Why do some participants in online auctions place their bids right before the time of closing? Using e-Bay data, we propose count-data models to look at both the presence of the late-bidding phenomenon and its intensity. Our results reveal significant differences between extremely late-bidders...

Experimental studies have compared cooperation across different nonmarket social dilemma settings, but the experimental literature has largely overlooked comparing cooperation across market and nonmarket settings. This paper reports the results from an experiment that compares behavior in...

I investigate an asymmetric duopoly where a public enterprise must supply the demand it faces, while a private enterprise has no such obligation. I show that such an asymmetric regulation yields the first-best outcome (Walrasian equilibrium).

With nondistortionary user charges, the first best and second best of a single-club-exogenous-income economy with identical individuals coincide. They differ if incomes differ. Overprovision of a superior club good then occurs in the Second Best.