Despite the EU Stability & Growth Pact and existing constitutional limits on public deficit/debt at the (sub)national level in many EU member countries, in the wake of the 2010 Greek bailout, many politicians and policy advisors have proposed new constitutional “debt brakes” to prevent...

Members of parliament in many countries are legally permitted to execute (un)paid jobs in addition to their political mandate. It is often argued that such moonlighting activities are unproblematic for the chain of democratic delegation and accountability as long as outside interests/earnings...

Elected representatives in many countries are legally allowed to carry out (un)paid jobs in addition to their political mandate, often referred to as moonlighting. Despite the important selection and incentive effects such outside positions might engender, academic studies evaluating the...

Die Bildungsminister der EU-Mitgliedstaaten haben sich darauf geeinigt, einen europäischen Hochschulraum zu schaffen. Damit soll nicht nur die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der Studierenden, sondern auch die der europäischen Hochschulausbildung erhöht werden. Wie kann diese Reform umgesetzt werden?...

It is often criticized in public debates that politicians in many jurisdictions have the power to set their own salaries. This paper scrutinizes this practice from a constitutional political economy perspective. A novel dataset is presented which provides an empirical overview of the methods...

Within the economics of higher education, there is a small but influential literature that describes and analyzes the outcomes of competitive processes on markets for higher educational services. Colleges and universities in the United States currently invest a vast amount of resources in order...

This article statistically analyzes the moonlighting activities of members of the German Bundestag. In contrast to popular prejudices about "the political class," the data reveal that there are considerable differences among the 613 MPs regarding (i) the number and type of ancillary activities...