In this paper, we seek to identify the causes of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We note that the importance of the question of redistribution was relatively minor when compared to the salience attached to issues of self-governance and autonomy of the numerous ethnic groups...

Can autocratic governments gain support by implementing a welfare reform and a repressive law? This paper studies a famous case - Bismarck's policies of social insurance and the antisocialist law in late 19th century Germany. The socialist party, I find, increases its vote share in...

Autocratic regimes can use carrots and/or sticks to prevent being overthrown by protests. Carrots, i.e. resource allocation, reduce the probability of protests, but cannot help to end them. Sticks, i.e. repression, reduce the probability that protests overthrow the regime, but also decrease its...

Using a new data set from 1890 to 2000, we estimate how the adoption of proportional representation affects policies in Swiss cantons. We show that proportional systems shift spending toward broad goods (e.g. education and welfare bene fits) but decrease spending on targetable goods (e.g. roads...

Can infrastructure investment win “hearts and minds”? We analyze a famous case in the early stages of dictatorship – the building of the motorway network in Nazi Germany. The Autobahn was one of the most important projects of the Hitler government. It was intended to reduce unemployment,...

This article examines the role of business in the historical development of job security regulations in Germany from their creation in the inter-war period to the dawn of the crisis of the 'German Model' in the 1980s. It contrasts the varieties of capitalism approach, which sees business as...

Can infrastructure investment win "hearts and minds"? We analyze a famous case in the early stages of dictatorship - the building of the motorway network in Nazi Germany. The Autobahn was one of the most important projects of the Hitler government. It was intended to reduce unemployment, and was...

We show that migrating extremists shape political landscapes toward their ideology in the long run. We exploit the unexpected division of the state of Upper Austria into a US and a Soviet occupation zone after WWII. Zoning prompts large-scale Nazi migration to US occupied regions. Regions that...

On 23 June 2016, the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. We analyze vote and turnout shares across 380 local authority areas in the United Kingdom. We find that exposure to the EU in terms of immigration and trade provides relatively little explanatory power for the referendum...

Populous communities often prefer more government involvement than less populous communities, but does community size per se affect citizens' preferences for government? Endogeneity commonly prevents testing for causal effects because (i) people can select into communities while (ii) government...