Many public goods generate utility only when combined with a time-input. Important examples include road networks and publicly provided leisure facilities. If it is possible to charge for the time spent using the public good it is generally a second-best Pareto optimal policy to do so even in...

The cost-effective public provision of high-quality goods and services is crucial for long-term growth. We study the determinants of public-sector efficiency (PSE) and in particular the role of citizens´ political values. Indeed, we argue that citizens´ willingness to monitor public affairs is...

The literature on long-term relationships in public finance is dominated by two approaches: fiscal sustainability and Wagner´s law. In this paper, we argue that they should be analyzed simultaneously, using vector error-correction models for public expenditures, revenues, and GDP. For Germany,...

Population aging will impose a significant burden on European pay-as-you-go pension systems. This study presents an estimate of this burden for the four largest euro-area countries and assesses alternative reform approaches. With prudent and realistic assumptions, the present value of future...

During the last three decades there has been an almost continuous undermining of the public interest by private interests operating either outside or inside Greek public administration. The result of this infiltration has been a gradual loss of bureaucratic autonomy to pursue the public...

There is no consistent notion of country size in the literature on the voluntary provision of an international public good. This paper suggests preference-adjusted GNP as a useful index of size. Defining a country s size in that manner, contributing countries are unambiguously larger than free...

Andreoni (1993) has shown in an experimental study that crowding out is incomplete when an involuntary lump-sum tax is levied exogenously on individuals to finance the provision of a public good. In this paper, we (i) replicate Andreoni's experimental conditions, and (ii) introduce treatments...

In identifying the free riders in the voluntary provision of a pure public good, Andreoni and McGuire (1993) simplify Bergstrom, Blume, and Varian's (1986)algorithm by systematizing the selection process of potential contributors. We propose an alternative algorithm in which a concept of...

Complete descriptions of Cournot-Nash equilibria in a model with large and asymmetric countries and international mobile capital are given. These countries have two tax instruments at their disposal. The possibility is shown that if the more populated country exports capital, a mutually...

This paper concerns the welfare consequences of environmental policy cooperation in a two-country economy. We assume that the countries finance their public expenditures by using distortionary taxes, and that they differ with respect to competition in the labor market. The purpose is to...