Adequate housing and affordable warmth are essential human needs, the lack of which may seriously harm people's health. Germany provides an allowance to low-income households, covering the housing as well as the space heating cost, to protect people from the consequences of poor housing...

Adequate housing and affordable warmth are essential human needs, the lack of which may seriously harm people’s health. Germany provides an allowance to low-income households, covering the housing as well as the space heating cost, to protect people from the consequences of poor housing...

The promotion of energy efficiency is seen as one of the top priorities of EU energy policy (EC, 2010). In order to design and implement effective energy policy instruments, it is necessary to have information on energy demand price and income elasticities in addition to sound indicators of...

It can be argued that one way to reduce the dependence from external energy sources, is simply to reduce the demand for energy. Energy savings may thus be considered a policy priority when concerns for energy security are particularly strong. Drawing on an original econometric approach, we check...

Access to energy services is a right everyone should be entitled to. The energy sector has attracted particular attention from an economical and financial point of view (e.g. liberalization of the markets), from an environmental point of view (e.g. European energy-climate policy), but relatively...

This paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence from 22 OECD countries to highlight how governments may use the tradeoff between social and military expenditure to advance their electoral and partisan objectives. Three basic results emerge. First, governments tend to bias outlays...

Desenvolvemos um estudo cross-country aplicado a um conjunto de países da OCDE no período de 1980-2013 que visa analisar a relação macroeconómica de longo-prazo entre as despesas sociais públicas agregadas e o produto. É um estudo de estatística descritiva e econométrica que pretende...

For a sample of 29 European countries, the efficiency of social protection public expenditures in providing income support and diminishing income inequality is assessed in a panel framework. An increase in the size of the government intervention through social protection public expenditure is...

This paper investigates how the timing of elections and government ideological motivations influence the dynamics of social and military expenditure in a panel of 22 OECD countries over the period 1988-2008. Three basic results emerge: First, governments tend to bias outlays towards social...

In this paper, we highlight the link between the political demand and social policy outcome while taking into account the design of the party system. The political demand is measured by indivudual preferences and the design of the party system is defined as the extent of party fractionalization....