Certificate trading schemes have been discussed as a cost-efficient means of reducing land use in Germany by capping and reallocating permissions to conduct building projects. However, in contrast to the established cap & trade systems for emissions, reputation-seeking politicians would be in...

In this paper we study whether inflation expectations react on variations of election outcome expectations. Using data from 6 countries we show that such a link in fact exists and thus provides empirical evidence supportive to rational partisan theory of business cycles.

This paper examines how politicians influenced social security policy in Germany. Using yearly data from the German Pension Insurance from 1957 to 2005, revenues as well as expenditures are analysed in linear regression models, respectively. In accordance with opportunistic political behaviour,...