Are new mayors more responsive to disasters than their reelected counterparts? The identification strategy is based on slim vote margin in which new and reelected mayors are found to be as if randomly assigned. We find that with greater storm exposure: new mayors spend more on health sector than...

Ever since the spectacular boom and bust cycle of the Spanish real estate industry, endemic corruption at the local level has become a widely recognized problem in the national public discourse. In an effort to expose an under-explored political determinant, this paper investigates the effect of...

This paper focuses on the political aspect of intergovernmental transfers in India. By using a balanced panel data-set comprising of data on 28 Indian states and Union Territories for the period 2003-2023 for both Legislative Assembly and Parliamentary elections at the state-level, the aim is to...

Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of powers...

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public service and the legislature that emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concerns that the strong representation of public servants in many Western parliaments compromises the constitutionally proposed...

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public administration and the legislature that emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concerns that the strong representation of bureaucrats in many Western parliaments compromises the constitutionally proposed...

This article examines whether the judges of the French Constitutional Court demonstrated partisanship when ruling on the validity of the elections to the lower house of the French Parliament between 1958 and 2005. It uses a new dataset on the decisions of the Constitutional Court which takes...

Much has been written about politicians' preferences for electoral systems, yet little is known about the preferences of voters. In 1993, New Zealand had a binding electoral referendum on the same day as the general election where voters chose between keeping a single plurality system (First...

This paper explores the interdependency of political institutions from the voter's perspective. Specifically, we are interested in three questions: (1) Does the partisan identity of the local mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election?; (2) Does this partisan...

This paper explores the interdependency of political institutions from the voter's perspective. Specifically, we are interested in: Does the partisan identity of the mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election?; Does this partisan identity influence the vote in...