In this paper, a new approach to disclose the impact of politics on economic growth is presented: we use data derived from content analysis of party manifestos as measures of party preferences. In a panel of 23 OECD countries, we detect a positive impact of party support for various...

The development of the unemployment rate differs substantially between OECD countries. In recent years some countries experienced a mild increase, other countries had a stable unemployment rate, while there are also 'successful' countries in which the unemployment rate decreased a lot. A common...

This book analyzes the dynamic macroeconomic effects of public capital in industrialized countries. The issue of whether public capital is productive has received a great deal of recent attention. Yet, existing empirical analyses have been limited to a small set of countries. This book presents...