All OECD countries but Korea have compulsory insurance programs for temporary disability,that is, cash benefits for non-work-connected sickness or injury. Despite the economic significance of these programs little is known about their effects on labor supply. This paper provides such evidence...

This paper addresses the question of whether the size of the legislature matters for the size of government. Previous empirical studies have found a positive relationship between the number of legislators and the size of government but it is questionable whether they have identified a causal...

In this brief comment, we return to the question raised in Dahlberg, Edmark and Lundqvist (2012) concerning a causal relationship between ethnic diversity and preferences for redistribution. A re-analysis of their study indicates that the results are based on a severe sample selection bias and...

This paper develops an empirical framework for the problem of soft budgets which is explicitly based on a dynamic commitment problem, i.e., the inability of a supporting organization to commit itself not to extend more resources ex post to a budget-constrained organization than it was prepared...

A long-standing issue in political economics is to what extent party control makes a difference in determining fiscal and economics policies. This question is very difficult to answer empirically because parties are not randomly selected to govern political entities. This article uses a...

In this paper, we develop an empirical framework for detecting the existence and estimating the magnitude of the softness of a budget constraint. The defining feature of a soft budget constraint is a subordinate organization’s expectations of being bailed out by a superior organization in case...

This paper makes use of regression discontinuity designs to estimate the effect of the number of legislators on the size of government. The results indicate a negative effect, i.e., the larger the size of the legislature the smaller is the size of government. This runs counter to conventional...