This paper empirically analyzes how political factors affect the deployment of renewable energy (RE) sources and compares it to other economic, energy and environmental drivers that have received greater attention in the literature so far. The sample encompasses the EU countries bound to attain...

Strategic interaction in local tax setting is motivated with yardstick competition only when the fiscal decision influences the incumbents’ probability of being re-elected. Most of the previous analyses draw conclusions on yardstick competition without estimating this link or failing to find...

This paper provides a theory explaining the observed cyclical pattern of the approbation of laws and decrees through a legislature. We study an environment with three (sets of) agents, an incumbent government, unorganized voters and special interest groups. Special interest groups differ from...

This paper empirically examines to what extent political factors explain different performances in income redistribution in countries that vary in terms of size of the public sector, tax systems, political institutions and governance. In line with the theory, we use the difference in the ex ante...

This paper examines which set of informations voters use when they cast their vote. On the one hand, electoral accountability models assume that voters rely on past policy decisions of the incumbent politician. Gathering this information is, however, often costly. On the other hand, voters may...

This paper tests the Political Legislation Cycle theory on French data. The theory predicts a peak of legislative production in the pre-electoral period, when the legislator increases voters’ utility in order to be reelected. France is unique in that two elections set up the pace of political...

We use data about the Italian Constitutional Court (1956-2005) to verify an implication of the “revisionist” explanations of judicial independence with respect to judicial appointments, namely that elected politicians reward more independent justices with appointments after the Court tenure....

The present study aims to test Meltzer and Richard’s (1981) hypothesis that lower-income individuals vote for candidates who favor higher taxes and more redistribution. Assuming that left-wing parties advocate a general increase in taxation, we estimate a vote function for the French Cantonal...