We investigate whether issuers that choose to forgo a bond rating suffer an interest cost penalty greater than the cost of the rating. We use estimated ratings provided by Moody's Investor Service to proxy for what the rating would have been if it had been purchased. We find that the primary...

Crises force us to stop and think. This paper examines the prospect of deep reform of national planning in Africa in response to COVID-19. The paper is a contrasted case study of Kenya and Uganda. The attempt at generalisation across Africa draws on a shared history of state formation. And a...

Since the Watergate scandal, campaign finance reform has been the focus of a great deal of national attention. Legislation has attempted to limit the amount that individuals or various entities may contribute to candidates or spend on political advertising or campaigns. Although the public...

The article considers perceptions of the new Russian energy policy in the oil and gas sector in Eastern Europe with a particular focus on the Polish perspective. The paper explains the regional reservations in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States to the Russo-German cooperation on the...

In kurzem Abstand sind in den Jahren 2000 und 2003 große politische Initiativen gescheitert, die wichtigsten deutschen Gemeindesteuern, die Grund- und die Gewerbesteuer, zu reformieren. Die Studie fasst die diskutierten Reformmodelle zusammen und verweist auf die fortbestehende Notwendigkeit...

Die Subventionsdefinition des Subventionsberichts des Bundes und andere in Deutschland gebräuchliche Abgrenzungen zeigen große Unterschiede zum Begriff der staatlichen Beihilfen im Sinne des EG-Vertrags. Die häufigen Verwirrungen und Fehlsteuerungen, die hieraus folgen, werfen die Frage auf,...

The well-known Johansson-Samuelson Theorem proves that, in partial equilibrium, comprehensive income taxation with a uniform tax rate is neutral in terms of investment decisions, if fiscal depreciation allowances coincide with economic depreciation. In this article we show that this result does...

Credit contracting between a lender with a market power and a small start-up entrepreneur may lead to a rejection of projects whose expected benefits are higher than their total costs when an adverse selection is present. This inefficiency may be eliminated by a government support in the form of...

This study examines the determinants of CEO compensation using data from a nationally representative sample of privately held U.S. corporations. We find that (i) the pay-size elasticity is much larger for privately held firms than for the publicly traded firms on which previous research has...