Debt-to-GDP ratios have grown to unprecedented levels in many industrialized economies. This requires disciplined consolidation efforts which are, however, supposed to come now at the wrong time with the economic recovery being fragile. Against this background, we call for a global debt brake...

This paper is dedicated to the relation between market development and democracy. We distinguish contexts and preferences and ask whether it is true that the demand for democracy only emerges after a certain degree of market development is reached, and whether, conversely, democratization is...

We study the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on college students' government- and market-attitudes using within-subject comparisons of survey responses elicited before and after the onset of the pandemic. We find that support for markets significantly declines after the onset of the pandemic, with...

Experiments have demonstrated that men are more willing to compete than women in stereotypically male tasks. We examine whether nominations close this gender gap. For example, are male nominators more willing than female nominators to enter nominees into competitions. Further, we consider the...

This chapter reviews the existing empirical evidence on how social insurance affects health. Social insurance encompasses programs primarily designed to insure against health risks, such as health insurance, sick leave insurance, accident insurance, long-term care insurance and disability...

We estimate the effect of legislative term limits on various categories of state government spending using the most recent panel of 47 states from 1972 to 2005. Besides the usual economic, political, fiscal and demographic factors, we also control for the state tax and expenditure limitations....

This paper looks at how individual preferences for the allocation of government spending change along the life cycle. Using the Life in Transition Survey II for 34 countries of Europe and Central Asia, we find that older individuals are less likely to support a rise in government outlays on...

This paper studies the relationship between people's beliefs about the quality of their institutions, as measured by corruption perceptions, and preferences for redistribution in Latin America. Our empirical study is guided by a theoretical model which introduces taxes into Foellmi and...

There is a long-standing controversy over the question of whether targeting social transfers towards the bottom part of the income distribution actually enhances or weakens their redistributive impact. Korpi and Palme have influentially claimed that "the more we target benefits at the poor, the...

Various countries have implemented transfer programs to individuals since the Covid-19 outbreaks. However, the extent to which such transfers alleviate economic recessions is unclear. This paper analyzes a South Korean program, which provided vouchers redeemable only at small local businesses....