The determinants of government responsiveness to its citizens is a key issue in politicaleconomy. Here, we develop a model based on the solution of political agency problems.Having a more informed and politically active electorate strengthens incentives for governmentsto be responsive. This...

We discuss political economy mechanisms which can explain the resource curse,in which an increase in the size of resource rents causes a decrease in the economy’stotal value added. We identify a number of channels through which resource rentswill alter the incentives of a political leader....

This paper introduces a democratic voting process into an OLG economyin order to analyze the effects of a rising old-age dependency ratio on the composition ofgovernment spending and endogenous economic growth. Forward-looking agents vote eachperiod on the public policy mix between productive...

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We provide an overview of the growing literature that uses micro-level data from multiplecountries to investigate health outcomes, and their link to socioeconomic factors, at olderages. Since the data are at a comparatively young stage, much of the analysis is at an earlystage and limited to a...

In this paper, we investigate the long-run effects of World War II on socio-economic status(SES) and health of older individuals in Europe. Physical and psychological childhood eventsare important predictors for labor market and health outcomes in adult life, but studies thatquantify these...

The goal of this paper is to examine the shape of the Laffer curve quantitativelyin a simple neoclassical growth model calibrated to the US as well as to the EU-15 economy. We show that the US and the EU-15 area are located on the left side of their labor and capital tax Laffer curves, but the...

This paper argues that corruption patterns are endogenous to political structures. Thus, corruption can be systemic and planned rather than decentralized and coincidental. In an economic system without law or property rights, a kleptocratic state may arise as a predatory hierarchy from a state...

Die Governance der Zentralbanken hat zwei Dimensionen: Corporate Governance und Public Governance. Public Governance ist ein institutioneller Rahmen, wobei die breite Öffentlichkeit eine Zentralbank regelt durch und durch die Legislative und Exekutive in einem Land. Dieses Papier argumentiert,...

Woman surage led to the greatest enfranchisement in the history of the United States.Before World War I, however, surage states remained almost exclusively conned to theAmerican West. The reasons for this pioneering role of the West are still unclear. Studyingthe timing of woman surage adoption...