Constitutional structures shape politicians' behaviour and hence policy outcomes through the different incentive schemes at work. In this paper we analyse these mechanisms in parliamentary and presidential systems. Such a comparison is carried over by analysing how the two systems are able to...

This paper compares the ability to select the efficient policy of a parliamentary and a presidential constitutional setup. In order to do it we build a dynamic theoretical model with asymmetric information that succeeds in addressing both the politicians accountability and the competence...

This paper proposes a model to study the main factors that influence the preferences of different population groups between presidential and parliamentary systems. Our theory suggests that the parliamentary regime leads to a type of fiscal decentralization in the form of more transfers to...

This paper discusses the main issues at stake in the Convention preparing a Constitutional Treaty for Europe. It builds on recent work in political economics to discuss the trade-offs between the parliamentary and the presidential model of democracy for legislative and executive activity in...

We try to demonstrate how economists may engage in research on comparative politics, relating the size and composition of government spending to the political system. A Downsian model of electoral competition and forward-looking voting indicates that majoritarian---as opposed to...

This paper studies gender interactions within hierarchical organizations using a large data set on the duration of Italian municipal governments elected between 1993 and 2003. A municipal government can be viewed as a hierarchy, whose stability over time depends on the degree of cooperation...

This paper studies how political fragmentation affects government stability. We show that each additional party with representation in Parliament increases the probability that the incumbent government is unseated by 4 percentage points. Governments with more resources at their disposal for...