Examples from the breakup of Yugoslavia and state-building in the successor states are used to highlight the political and constitutional choices facing Ukraine. The main lesson is that legitimacy is needed for constitution-building, which is needed for long-term state stability. Ethnic and...

We consider a median voter model with uncertainty about how the economy functions. The distribution of income is exogenously given and the provision of a public good is financed through a proportional tax. Voters and politicians do not know the true production function for the public good, but...

Die vorliegende Studie wurde im Auftrag der Robert Bosch Stiftung im ifo Arbeitsbereich "Sozialpolitik und Arbeitsmärkte" erstellt und im Juni 2005 abgeschlossen, um die Arbeit der von der Bosch Stiftung initiierten Kommission "Familie und demographischer Wandel" zu unterstützen. Gegenstand...

Luisa Dörr prepared this study while she was working at the ifo Center for Public Finance and Political Economy. The study was completed in February 2022 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It consists of three distinct empirical essays...

President Joe Biden faces some political and economic headwinds in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections this year. Current economic challenges include historically high inflation rates and signs of an impending recession. [...] This paper gives a critical overview of the political and economic...

Thüringen verfehlt ebenso wie die anderen Bundesländer und Deutschland insgesamt die selbst gesteckten und die europäischen Ziele zur Digitalisierung öffentlicher Leistungen. Die Umsetzung der 575 im Onlinezugangsgesetz aufgeführten Leistungen für Bürger und Unternehmen bis 2022 wurde...

Katharina Wedel prepared this study while she was working at the Center for the Economics of Education at the ifo Institute. The study was completed in September 2023 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at LMU Munich. It consists of four distinct empirical essays that...