We empirically examine under what conditions lead financiers decide to finance a buyout through a syndicate of multiple investors and how these syndicates are structured, using a unique dataset of 865 European buyouts during 1999-2009. We rely on a theoretical framework that integrates the...

Stefanie Gäbler prepared this study while she was working at the ifo Center for Public Finance and Political Economy. The study was completed in March 2020 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It consists of six distinct empirical essays...

Florian Dorn prepared this study during his doctoral studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (LMU). The study was completed in September 2020 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics. This dissertation contributes to the empirics of public economics and...

We analyze the decision of local governments to deploy social media. We argue that – by deploying social media – governments send a signal of modernity, transparency and openness for dialogue to their citizens. We apply a hazard model to panel data on municipalities in the German state of...

One of the most important social effects of the 2006 football World Cup was the feel-good effect. The present contribution is one of the first to deal with the development of a general theory for the management of feel-good effects and systematically analyses the influencing factors taking the...

In 1878 the liberal parties lost enough votes to loose the majority in the parliament which they had defended in the general election just one year before. In this paper, the question of where the voters came from and why the voting changed so crucially within one year are re-examined. The...

European governance is in a state of upheaval. Due to the impact of the coronaviruspandemic, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the energy price crisis, Europeanfiscal policy has come under increasing pressure. In this complex situation, the EuropeanCommission considers a return to the...

We analyze the compliance costs of individual taxpayers resulting from the German income tax. Using survey data that has been raised between December 2008 and April 2009, we find evidence for a considerably higher cost burden of self-employed taxpayers. Taxable income and the demand for external...

Using a unique dataset of German members of parliament with information on total earnings including outside income, this paper analyzes the politicians' wage gap (PWG). After controlling for observable characteristics as well as accounting for selection into politics, we find a positive PWG...

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...