Why is corruption-defined here as the misuse of public office for private gain-perceived to be more widespread in some countries than others? Different theories associate cross-national variation in the extent of corruption with particular historical and cultural traditions, levels of economic...

Democracy and ballot box voting have often been held up as central elements of the American political tradition. Less emphasis has been placed on the centrality of “voting with your feet.” Yet in many ways, it is an even more fundamental and distinctive feature of American politics than...

One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant about politics and government. Many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This creates a nation...

What is it about federal governance that makes it so attractive to economists, political philosophers and legal scholars and is there any evidence that would suggest all this attention is warranted? Proponents see federalism as a means to more efficient public and private economies, as the...

In prior studies, accounting and decentralization corruption solutions have so far been analysed in isolation. In this article, we connect these two strands of literature on corruption. Understanding this connection is important because weak financial accounting and reporting systems can inhibit...

Local governments face threats from natural and man-made disasters, but tightening budgets create difficulty in developing the resource and information capacity to meet these challenges. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the federal government provided a variety of grants for equipment and...

The paper examines the viability of applying transaction cost reasoning to the government by discussing the possibility of further international cooperation in the field of antitrust. Given that, in their international relations, the analogy between states and private actors is more realistic...

Previous studies of policy responses to economic crises argue that crises may lead to more interventionist policy but also cause deregulation. The empirical evidence in previous studies is equally mixed. The present paper argues that whether or not governments implement more or less...

The paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a version of the career concerns model of political agency with endogenous entry of political candidates. The evidence...

After the global financial crisis, systemic risk regulation has taken center stage. Many consider hedge funds a potential threat to financial stability. Regulating hedge funds, however, is necessarily a transnational challenge because no national government alone can effectively control the...