Aggregate votes for incumbent parties in post-war Germany were determined by the weighted-average growth of real per capita disposable income. Each percentage point of per capita real disposable income growth sustained over the legislative term yielded approximately two percentage points of...

The way forward for Italy, within a Europe that has to change. A Europe that is too economics-minded and not politically-minded enough, where growth and employment are stifled by tight budgets. Yet another path is possible, if we still keep the single currency but if we change regulations and...

Neoliberalism has not given rise to a sustained profit-led growth process, but to a finance-dominated accumulation regime in which growth relies either on financial bubbles and rising household debt (‘debt-driven growth’) or on net exports (‘export-driven growth’). The financial crisis...

We study the volatility of growth rates and find that it differs systematically across countries. Our empirical investigation reveals that there is a high correlation between disparity in political regimes across countries and differences in volatility. This is not the case for some of the...

This paper studies the optimal level of discretion in policymaking. We consider a fiscal policy model where the government has time-inconsistent preferences with a present-bias towards public spending. The government chooses a fiscal rule to trade off its desire to commit to not overspend...

In April this year the European Parliament in Strasbourg said "no" to the multi-annual budget which Governments of the European Union member Countries had agreed upon in February 2013. The changes may be minimal, but a strong message was sent to governments by the only institution in Europe...

The discussion around the adequateness of the Constitution to the current economic setting is still ongoing. To see where, this discussion will lead eventually, it is interesting to compare the Italian decentralization process with a similar process undertaken in Belgium. This contribution...

This paper examines the influence of political ideology on economic growth in the French democracy since 1871. It does so by addressing three main issues : the property and the reliability of a political ideology index in the long-run, the robustness of the relationship between ideology and...

Institutions are not only created and built, but also — and especially — need to be learnt. It is a process which takes place in all economies, but acquires a special importance in less advanced countries. Not only theoretical arguments, but also the practical experience over the past 15...

On May 1, 2004, ten countries in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe will become full members of the EU. The parliaments and monetary authorities of the ten accession countries have already to a large extent adapted their legal and institutional structures to the new Europe-wide environment....