The argument for democracy over dictatorship is often made on second-best grounds. Given the possibility of self-interested leaders, opportunities for predation are decreased by distributing political authority among a number of individuals. This second-best argument loses cogency under...

... Die vorliegende Arbeit stützt sich deshalb auf eine institutionell bedingte Veränderung derBeteiligung, die Einführung des Frauenstimmrechts, um den Effekt einer kontrolliertenAusweitung des Elektorats auf die Staatsausgaben zu untersuchen. Das institutionelle Labor Schweiz erlaubt dabei...

We test whether the proactive use of instruments of direct democracy by voters can help to explain fiscal sustainability of 25 Swiss cantons. Using data of all cantonal popular votes since 1977, our results show that the fiscal reaction of cantonal governments to an increase in the debt to GDP...

We demonstrate that sharply different fiscal and other policy choices across democracies can be explained as a consequence of differences in the ability of political competitors to make credible pre-electoral commitments to voters. Politicians can overcome their credibility deficit in two ways....

This paper presents evidence on the political and economic determinants of social sector spending from a panel dataset. The principal finding is that democratization in countries, as measured by within-country variation in subjective indices of democracy, is a significant predictor of government...

We study classist societies where the middle class fight over redistribution of public funds with the marginalized and over social policies with the elites. We show that such societies are often deprived of well-defined majoritarian preferences, underscoring the importance of the party system....

We examine democratic public-good provision with heterogeneous legislators. Decisions are taken by majority rule and an agenda-setter proposes a level of the public good, taxes, and subsidies. Members are heterogeneous with respect to their benefits from the public good. We find that, depending...

The traditional economic approach to tax evasion does not appear to be particularly successful in explaining the extent of tax compliance. It is often argued that reciprocity norms which establish a fiscal exchange between the state and the citizens shape tax morale to a large extent. In that...

The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true...

We study the political economy of the environment in autocratic, weak and strong democracies when individuals can either mitigate the health consequences of domestic pollution privately or reduce pollution collectively through public policy. The setting is that of a small open economy in which...