Various political institutions designed to control the government have been analyzed in the academic literature. However, an important institution has been neglected so far: independent auditing institutions with an extended mandate to audit the budget draft and individual policy proposals. We...

In parliament, individual representatives vote with a certain probability according to their constituents’ preferences. Thus, the mechanism of the Condorcet Jury Theorem can be fruitfully applied to parliamentary representation: The probability that a majority of representatives votes...

We match individual senators’ voting behavior on legislative proposals with 24 real referenda decisions on exactly the same issues with identical wording. This setting allows us to evaluate the median voter model’s quality with revealed constituents’ preferences. Results...

We assess the effect of constituents’ preferences on legislators’ decisions within a quasiexperimental setting: In the Swiss referendum process, citizens and legislators reveal their preferences for legislative proposals. We match roll call votes of all Swiss legislators on 102...

We compare the votes of parliamentary representatives and their constituents on a popular initiative that directly aimed at weakening the separation of powers in 1922 in Switzerland. We analyze whether the strength of individual ties to the public service affect the probability of voting for the...

We identify the impact of transparency in political decision -making on the quality of political representation with a difference- in-difference strategy. The quality of political representation is measured by observed divergence of parliamentary decisions from revealed voter preferences on the...

In economies with reasonably mobile individuals, the demand for property depends on current as well as future taxes and public services. As a consequence, the current level of public net debts, i.e. public debts minus assets, should capitalize into property prices. While debt capitalization has...

We analyze the effect of constituents’ preferences on legislators’ decisions within a quasi-experimental setting: In the Swiss referendum process, constituents and legislators vote on policy proposals and thus reveal their preferences. We match roll call votes of all legislators on 118...