The main objective of the paper is to use the following terms of Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson - Despotic, Real, Paper, Shackled Leviathans - to check and evaluate the state of democracy, governance and social power in Central and Eastern European Countries (CECCs). Six states were included...

Pork-barrel spending is the use of federal money for localized projects that yield only a narrow geographic benefit. It is a commonly held belief that politicians use this spending to improve their chances of re-election. One way that an incumbent can increase their chances of re-election is...

Nach langwierigen Verhandlungen haben sich CDU/CSU und SPD auf einen Koalitionsvertrag geeinigt und eine gemeinsame Regierung gebildet. In diesem Beitrag wird analysiert, wie verschiedene Koalitionsaussagen der Parteien im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahl 2013 die Verteilung der Macht in der...

Paul A. Samuelson taught that every society has to choose between butter and guns. Individuals have to make the Gossen test of utility equivalence. The authors of the recent Mirrlees Review seem to believe that they can avoid this choice by considering taxation only. But how can one decide on...

Using firm-level data covering 709 cities in 128 countries, we examine the role of a comprehensive list of business and institutional environment variables at the sub-national level in explaining firm employment and productivity growth. We find basic protection (with corruption as an element),...