This dissertation contributes to the emerging literature on endogenous political institutions and the causal relationship between institutions and the political and economic environment. For the purpose, all chapters rely on electoral reforms used as natural experiments that induce exogenous...

We survey the theoretical and empirical literature on local and international tax competition in Economics. On the basis of this survey, we discuss whether EU countries should harmonise tax policies to prevent a race to the bottom. Much of the evidence suggests that tax competition does not lead...

This paper studies the economic costs of conflicts at the country and ethnic group settlement level with light output data as measured by orbital satellites and conflict data spatially mapped to latitude and longitude coordinates. Using a worldwide data set of 7,704 individual ethnic group...

We survey the theoretical and empirical literature on local and international tax competition in Economics. Based on this survey, we discuss whether EU countries should harmonize tax policies to prevent a “race to the bottom”. Much of the evidence suggests that tax competition does not lead...