We analyze a simple model of local public good provision in a country consisting of a large number of heterogeneous regions, each comprising two districts, a city and a village. When districts remain autonomous and local public goods have positive spillover effects on the neighbouring district,...

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have become important tools to promote a variety of public goals and policies. In the past years much attention has been given to the expected social benefits from deploying ICT in different fields (transportation, education, public participation...

This paper studies the equilibrium size of countries. Individuals in smallcountries have greater influence over the nature of political decision mak-ing while individuals in large countries have the advantage of more publicgoods and lower tax rates. The model implies that (i) there exists...

We analyse the economic impacts of place-based policies that aim to enhance economic development by stimulating growth and productivity of firms in designated areas. We use unique panel data from China with information on manufacturing firms’ production factors, productivity and location, and...

This paperinvestigates the duration of housing construction projects in the Netherlands. We utilize comprehensive data from the Dutch Land Registry for the period 2013-2022 to investigate the importance of municipal land ownership, building plot price changes, construction costs, development...

In this paper we argue that authorities aid cooperation by means ofdirect coordination or the enforcement of re-commitment devices suchas contract laws.Credible threats of violence allow this role. In alocal interaction model, an authority forms if mutually connected individuals with sufficient...

Today’s global world is characterized not only by a high volume ofinternational trade and foreign investment relativeto national income, but also by a changed composition of that tradetowards a greater fraction of trade in inputs andcapital goods and outsourcing of production.. Emphasized is...

Civil servants have a reputation for being lazy. However, people's personal experiences with civil servants frequently run counter to this stereotype. We develop a model of an economy in which workers differ in laziness and in public service motivation, and characterise optimal incentive...

We assess whether public sector employees have a stronger inclination to serve others and are more risk averse than employees in the private sector. A unique feature of our study is that we use revealed rather than stated preferences data. Respondents of a large-scale survey were offered a...

We examine differences in altruism and laziness between public sector employees and private sector employees. Our theoretical model predicts that the likelihood of public sector employment increases with a worker's altruism, and increases or decreases with a worker's laziness depending on his...