Summary Most German states changed their local constitutions during the 1990s in order to become more citizen-friendly. To reach that goal, many local constitutions now allow for the direct election of mayors, initiatives and referenda, and vote-aggregation as well as vote-splitting....

This study contains further evidence on the economic effects of direct democratic institutions. A first study found that countries with national initiatives have higher government expenditure and are characterized by more rent-seeking activity, that the effects of direct democratic institutions...

There is a well-established literature analyzing the effects of fiscal institutions on fiscal policy variables such as budget deficits or accumulated government debt. We combine this literature with the emerging field of positive constitutional economics, which deals with the economic effects of...

This is the first study that assesses the economic effects of differences in organizational design of supreme audit institutions (SAIs) on a cross-country basis. The effects on three groups of economic variables are estimated, namely on (1) fiscal policy, on (2) government effectiveness and...