This paper investigates whether the socioeconomic status of the head of government helps explain fiscal performance. Applying sociological research that attributes differences in people's ways of thinking and acting to their relative standing within society, we test whether the social status of...

This text focuses on long-term unemployment in the German labor market caused by insufficient work skills capabilities and discusses the deficits of the current policy in improving the situation of job seekers who are repeatedly rejected in their efforts to find a job. For both the German...

This paper investigates whether the socioeconomic status of the head of government helps explain fiscal performance. Applying sociological research that attributes differences in people's ways of thinking and acting to their relative standing within society, we test whether the social status of...

This paper estimates the effect of political power on tax policies in municipal councils under a proportional election system. The main challenge in estimating the causal effect of parties on policy is to isolate the effect of power from underlying voter preferences and the selection effect of...

Over the last few years we have observed a prominent flourishing of empirical studies on the determinants of new business creation and its effect on the economy. The present study focuses on an important determinant of entrepreneurship: the quality of institutions. This paper is an empirical...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) show structural shortcomings with regard to the development of international markets. Thus, it is the explicit goal of foreign trade promotion to foster the degree of internationalisation of SMEs. Yet, empirical research whether foreign trade promotion...

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public administration and the legislature that emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concerns that the strong representation of bureaucrats in many Western parliaments compromises the constitutionally proposed...

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public service and the legislature that emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concerns that the strong representation of public servants in many Western parliaments compromises the constitutionally proposed...

Do incumbents in an election have an advantage, and if so, are these advantages heterogeneous across parties or government and opposition? We first present a theoretical discussion on the possible heterogeneity of incumbency effects in a pure two-party system. Then, we estimate the incumbency...