This paper studies the role of direct democracy in ensuring efficient and cost effective provision of goods and … public goods, and applying a fully non-parametric approach to estimate local government overall efficiency, the analysis … shows that more direct democratic activity is associated with higher government efficiency. This result suggests that more …

In comparative politics, the measurement and classification of democracy has been one of the main issues under study … over the past decades. Attempts have been made to empirically assess different models of democracy in action by identifying … and measuring various indicators. Lijphart s seminal work, Patterns of Democracy, is one of the most comprehensive …

The paper investigates the effect of local electoral rules on the political participation of the residents, as … participation. The magnitude of the effect is estimated at between 1 and 3 percentage points. …