Up to now there was a general conviction that increasing unemployment and inflation have a negative impact on the government's popularity. This was true for Germany as well, but it does not seem to hold any longer. This paper first reviews the results of earlier periods before presenting new...

The basic idea behind this paper is that voters have to be able to distinguish the positions of the parties. Following Weber's Law this depends on the relative distance with respect to their own optimal position. Using such a measure a model of voter participation is developed which allows for...

First, a brief sketch of the economic tasks government has to perform are given, before three issues are discussed in more detail: Public production, competition policy, and government interventions in Corporate Governance. These three issues are of particular political relevance in Switzerland,...

In comparing Switzerland and Germany, this paper discusses basic but potentially conflicting constitutional principles and the problems which can arise from such conflicts and which have to be handled by a constitution. We concentrate on three central areas: (i) the tension between democracy and...

The current debt crisis in many OECD countries calls for adequate strategies in budget consolidation. To regain fiscal solvency many governments base their fiscal adjustments at least partly on spending cuts. A common political claim is that spending cuts rely too much on investment thereby...

First, the institutions of direct democracy, referendum and initiative, are described. One of the main arguments against direct political rights is that citizens are often, or even generally, not enough informed or even incompetent to decide on important political issues. Therefore, the problem...

In this paper we deal with two questions, (i) what are the origins of the current financial crisis, and (ii) what did economists contribute, or why did economists fail to provide a convincing answer for the origins of the crisis, and possible solutions to overcome it? Apparently, the economics...