This paper is based on first-hand experience from Customs reforms in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) and presents unpublished data on the impact of Customs reforms on revenues, trade facilitation, private sector operators and frontline Customs officials' behaviors in Africa. Customs agencies are...

To what extent differences across developing countries in their domestic tax mobilization can be explained, in addition to the traditional determinants, by political economy factors and particularly by the political regime? Using a panel of 78 developing countries over the period 1990-2005, this...

This paper addresses the question of whether a decentralized government is subject to a stronger level of electoral control than a centralized government. When electoral control is strong an incumbent investing a low level of effort in providing public goods will face a serious threat of being...

While many studies explored impacts of political quotas for females, often with ambiguous results, underlying mechanisms and long-term effects have received relatively little attention. Nation-wide data from India spanning a 15-year period allow us to explore how reservations affect leader...

Government cloud services are a new development at the intersection of electronic government and cloud computing which holds the promise of rendering government service delivery more effective and efficient. Cloud services are virtual, dynamic and potentially stateless which has triggered...

We study the political determinants of policy experimentation during the US welfare reform. Among other changes, this reform shifted the autonomy to implement welfare policies from the federal government to the individual states. In line the predictions from a political agency model, we find...

In this natural field experiment with almost 2.000 customers of an online-broker we test what happens when investors receive feedback on their investment success in a monthly securities account report. We test four designs using different graphical displays and text. All report designs show...

Using a panel of naturalizations in U.S. states from 1986 to 2012, we empirically analyze the impact of elections on immigration policy. Our results indicate that immigration policy is (partly) driven by national elections: there are more naturalizations in presidential election years and during...

Nowadays, a solid budget serves as an important quality signal for the electorate. Therefore, politicians might face an incentive to influence tax revenue forecasts which are widely regarded as a key element for budget setups. Looking at the time period from 1996 to 2012, we systematically...

This paper analyses whether the different powers and resources at the disposal of local and regional governments across Europe deliver greater satisfaction with political institutions and lead to greater personal happiness. The analysis uses microdata from the four available waves of the...