In 1990, during reunification, West German democratic institutions and the existing political party system were expanded to the East German states. Even after 25 years, the people of eastern and western Germany still differ in their political engagement and attitudes. However, these differences...

Im Jahr 1990 wurden im Zuge der Wiedervereinigung die westdeutschen demokratischen Institutionen und das bestehende Parteiensystem auf die ostdeutschen Bundesländer ausgeweitet. Auch 25 Jahre danach unterscheiden sich die Menschen in Ost- und Westdeutschland weiterhin in ihrem politischen...

Im Jahr 1990 wurden im Zuge der Wiedervereinigung die westdeutschen demokratischen Institutionen und das bestehende Parteiensystem auf die ostdeutschen Bundesländer ausgeweitet. Auch 25 Jahre danach unterscheiden sich die Menschen in Ost- und Westdeutschland weiterhin in ihrem politischen...

Theoretical work based on social identity theory and in-group favoritism predicts that increased population diversity (e.g., due to immigration) reduces support for redistributive public policies. In this article, we add to the empirical literature testing this prediction in three ways. First,...

We study political determinants of municipality amalgamations during a boundary reform in the German state of Brandenburg, which reduced the number of municipalities from 1,489 to 421. The analysis is conducted using an extensive data set on the political decision makers as well as fiscal and...

Die kommunalen Finanzen stehen seit Beginn der Coronakrise unter besonderer Beobachtung. Die deutsche Politik hat zurecht erkannt, dass bei der Bekämpfung der Krise eine handlungsfähige Kommunalpolitik zwingend notwendig ist. Tatsächlich haben die kommunalen Haushalte sowohl 2020 als auch...

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing separately for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can separately identify these cycles and account for general year effects. For the executive branch, we show that it...

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing separately for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can separately identify these cycles and account for general year effects. For the executive branch, we show that it...

We study political determinants of municipality amalgamations during a boundary reform in the German state of Brandenburg, which reduced the number of municipalities from 1,489 to 421. The analysis is conducted using data on the political decision makers as well as fiscal and socio-economic...

Signature requirements are often used as hurdles to prevent overuse of public referenda. We evaluate the causal effect of lowering signature requirements on the number of observed citizen initiatives. Based on municipality-level data for Germany, we make use of legislative changes at specific...