We study how policies limiting the spending capacity of local governments may reduce corruption. We exploit the extension of one such policy, the Domestic Stability Pact (DSP), to small Italian municipalities. The DSP led to a decrease in both recorded corruption rates and corruption charges per...

Fiscal rules are laws aimed at reducing the incentive to accumulate debt, and many countries adopt them to discipline local governments. Yet, their effectiveness is disputed because of commitment and enforcement problems. We study their impact applying a quasi-experimental design in Italy. In...

This paper investigates the behavior of rent-seeking politicians in an environment of increasing economic integration. The focus of the paper is on the implications of globalization-induced political yardstick competition for constitutional design with a view to the current discussion in the...

This paper investigates the behavior of rent-seeking politicians in an environment of increasing economic integration. The focus of the paper is on the implications of globalization-induced political yardstick competition for constitutional design with a view to the current discussion in the...

This paper analyzes the relationships between the degree of decentralization of public policy and the emergence of horizontal strategic interactions. We analyze the structural funds allocation process in determining how the structure of governance of cohesion policy a ects the development of...

We present some stylised facts about the composition of public investment in Europe and analyse its determinants, with a special focus on the role of fiscal decentralisation. The empirical analysis is conducted both for levels of different types of public investment and for their shares in total...

Patent box regimes have become increasingly popular as an instrument to attract taxable income from intellectual property (IP). This paper assesses the quantitative impact of patent box regimes on profit shifting by multinational enterprises (MNEs). We proxy the ability to access the tax benefit...

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether discretionary provisioning by Western European banks is driven by income smoothing or credit risk considerations. We find evidence that discretionary provisioning by Western European banks is driven by income smoothing incentives in the...