This paper re-examines the link between globalization and income inequality. We use data for 140 countries over the period 1970-2014 and employ an IV approach to deal with the endogeneity of globalization measures. We find that the link between globalization and income inequality differs across...

We examine how trade openness influences income inequality within countries. The sample includes 139 countries over the period 1970-2014. We employ predicted openness as instrument to deal with the endogeneity of trade openness. The effect of trade openness on income inequality differs across...

We examine how political institutions influence health expenditure by using a panel of 151 developing and developed countries for the years 2000 to 2015 and four measures of democracy. Our pooled OLS analysis shows that democracies have 20-30% higher government health expenditure relative to GDP...

I investigate how the third wave of democracy influenced national defense spending by using a panel of 110 countries for the period 1972-2013. I use new SIPRI data on military expenditure, which has been extended to years prior to 1988 and four democracy measures to address differences among...

Politicians are expected to influence policy outcomes in a way to gain electoral advantage. There is, however, a pending question whether efficiency in the provision of public goods and services is affected by strategic behavior. I examine how electoral cycles influence local government...

This paper investigates the effects of health on wages by controlling for a number of problems: first, the unobservable genetic endowment may cause an omitted variable bias; second, using a self-reported health variable could induce measurement error; third, the issue of reverse causality...

The advantages and disadvantages of public sector decentralization are widely discussed in economics and political science. While some authors argue that decentralization leads to an optimal provision of public services and a promotion of economic growth, others emphasize the dangers of...

The paper presents a detailed industry-level productivity analysis (52 industries) for the effects of industry structure on TFP growth for Germany from 1971 until 2000. The analysis builds on a theory by Acemoglu et al. (2003) relating industry structure and productivity growth of an industry....

It is well-known that nonresponse affects the results of surveys and can even cause bias due to selectivities if it cannot be regarded as missing at random. In contrast to household surveys, response behaviour in business surveys has been examined rarely in the literature. This paper is one of...