In 1974 Britain elected a Labour government pledged to expand public spending significantly. Labour followed its programme for two years, but after that began to cut both government spending and taxation, anticipating the post-1979 Conservative agenda. This paper examines the history of this...

This paper carries out a critical reappraisal of the two contending theories purporting to explain long-run government spending: Wagner's Law and different variants of the ratchet effect. We analyze data spanning from the early 19th century until the present day in Sweden and the United Kingdom....

We study the opportunistic political budget cycle in the London Metropolitan Boroughs between 1902 and 1937 under two different suffrage regimes: taxpayer suffrage (1902-1914) and universal suffrage (1921-1937). We argue and find supporting evidence that the political budget cycle operates...

Public Auditors are fundamental institutions to supervise government agents. Without accurate information principals would find it hard to make adequate decisions. Since agents face strong incentives to misreport, competent audits of financial information are crucial. This paper is the first...

Excessive regulatory accumulation has long been a concern of policymakers, and over the past 40 years, many presidents and members of Congress have taken steps to address this issue. Every recent president beginning with Carter issued or reaffirmed executive orders that set requirements for...

This paper aims to study the distribution of fiscal power between the legislature and the executive in each of the 70 countries analysed - by comparing Legislative Budget Institutions of 70 countries. This paper also provide practical insights for developing financial strategies that would...

This volume, the IEA reprints revised versions of twelve lectures in three areas where Dr. Stelzer is acknowledged as an expert - competition policy, regulation, and energy and environmental policy. He discusses the role of competition policy and the form it should take; the proper place of...

The government's 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review was anything but comprehensive. The cuts to government spending were modest, and large swathes of state activity were barely touched. Britain will remain a heavily regulated, high-tax, high-spend economy. Instead of totally reviewing the...

We study the opportunistic political budget cycle in the London Metropolitan Boroughs between 1902 and 1937 under two different suffrage regimes: taxpayer suffrage (1902-1914) and universal suffrage (1921-1937). We argue and find supporting evidence that the political budget cycle operates...