Recent research has shown that the degree to which people feel they are in control of their lives is an important correlate of individual happiness, where those that feel more in control are also found to be systematically happier. In turn, the economic sources of perceived life control are only...

Are people happier if they experience freedom from regulations, and how do individual attitudes towards liberalization influence personal life satisfaction? Based on the data from European and World Values Surveys and the Economic Freedom of the World project, we find evidence for positive...

It is frequently claimed that high levels of generalised trust are conducive for economic reforms. In contrast, the "traditional view" on institutional and political constraints on the executive (IPCE) postulates that high IPCE tend to paralyse the decision-making process, thus blocking required...

The paper investigates empirically the interaction between economic growth performance and political institutions in producing free-market reform. In particular, we explore whether political regime types systematically shape government policy responses to good or bad growth performance,...

The relationship between government size and growth has received an enormous attention in the economics literature, and the recent financial crisis has forced this topic back on the agenda. A highly controversial debate in this respect is whether large governments are harmful for growth....

Stringent fiscal rules and budgetary procedures might generate incentives for political decision-makers to cut predominantly productive public investment during periods of fiscal consolidation. While the influence of the European Stability and Growth Pact on public investment received a lot of...

The paper describes a model for computing the trend output and the structural budget deficit in Austria. The calculation of trend output is based on a production function approach within a small macroeconomic model of the Austrian economy. A decomposition of public budgets into cyclical and...

Several empirical studies derive that personal positions with respect to policy measures are dominated by ideology instead of narrow self-interest. In the present field study we carried out a telephone survey with 1,003 respondents all over Austria. Instead of measuring selfishness indirectly by...

Which impact does government size have on life satisfaction, and how do effects of bigger government differ between income groups in society? Previous studies typically employed country averages and thus neglect possibly heterogeneous happiness effects between income groups. The paper addresses...