We analyze the factors driving the emergence of inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in tasks of internal administration in West-Germany between 2001 and 2014. In line with the Institutional Collective Action Approach, we find similarities in political ideology to foster cooperation. Cost pressure...

This paper examines and tests the existence of political budget cycles in Papua New Guinea during the period 1988–2004. Several factors point to the existence of political budget cycles in Papua New Guinea. The paper provides an overview of the political business cycle literature, and...

In the presence of competing interest groups, this paper examines how the form of votebuying contracts affects policy outcomes. We study contracts contingent upon individual votes, policy outcomes, and/or vote shares. Voters either care about their individual votes, or about the policy outcome....

A comprehensive and logically rigorous analysis of the issues raised by the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner N.Gopalaswami for the removal of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla, the President’s rejection and the developments that followed.

The countries that were once British colonies in the Caribbean share a common language and a colonial history of slavery, dominance of a plantation-based sugar industry, and broadly similar government and administrative traditions. Following independence in the late-1960s economic strategies and...

Viewing fiscal policies as the outcome of democratically resolved conflicts of households over public goods and taxes, the “economic model of politics” proposes a public choice approach, which does not rely on social welfare functions. With it, a country’s overall budget can be derived...

We study the effects of electoral institutions on the size and composition of public expenditure in OECD and Latin American countries. We present a model emphasizing the distinction between purchases of goods and services, which are easier to target geographically, and transfers, which are...

This paper assesses the presence of opportunistic electoral budget cycles in Papua New Guinea. Using quarterly time series data, a clear pattern emerges of pre-election manipulations of fiscal policy by incumbent governments, mainly in the form of increased development spending and overall...

This paper develops a model of political regulation in which politicians set the regulated price in order to maximize electoral support by signaling to voters a pro-consumer behavior. Political incentives and welfare constraints interact in the model, yielding an equilibrium in which the real...

Economic policy depends not only on national elections but also on coalition bargaining strategies. In coalition government, minority parties bargain on policy and form a majority coalition, and select a Prime Minister from their mids. In Holland the latter is done conventionally with Plurality,...