This paper uses the Swedish municipal amalgamation reform of 1952 to study the common pool problem in politics. The amalgams were common pools and the municipalities had incentives to free-ride on their amalgam partners by increasing debt prior to amalgamation. We find that municipalities that...

Using data from the Swedish Election Studies between 1985 and 1994 supplemented with time series on inflation and unemployment, I compare the impact of macro- and microeconomic variables on the individual vote. The principal finding is that macroeconomic variables influence the vote a bit more...

While studies of the relationship between economic freedom and economic growth have shown it to be positive, significant and robust, it has rightly been argued that different areas of economic freedom may have quite different effects on growth. Along that line, Carlsson and Lundström (2002)...