In this paper we address the role of the veil of ignorance on work incentives and tax rates in a two-person real effort experiment. We find that effort levels decrease with a rise in tax rates. Tax revenues peak at intermediate tax rates of 50 percent to 65 percent, supporting the existence of a...

This paper studies the implications offlexible integration in the European Union. Itanalyses the voting power of member states in theCouncil of Ministers when differently sized subgroupsof the EU are set up. European Monetary Union isreferred to as the most important example of...

This paper studies the implications of flexible integration in the European Union. It analyses the voting power of member states in the Council of Ministers when differently sized subgroups of the EU are set up. European Monetary Union is referred to as the most important example of flexible...

The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in the European Monetary Union shall deter countries from running excessive deficits by the threat of punishment, executed conditional on the outcome of a multistage voting procedure. We examine voting behaviour in an experiment which closely resembles the...

Field data on the strategic use of deficits to limit the budgetary scope of future governments are inconclusive about the effects of political polarization or a government's re-election probability on fiscal policy. Therefore, we designed a controlled experiment to examine the strategic use of...

We test for the influence of government strength and dispersion of power among the parties of coalition governments on the size of annual debt accumulation through budget deficits in OECD-countries from 1970 to 1999. Government strength and power dispersion in coalition governments are measured...