The causes of people's political attitudes are largely unknown. We study this issue by exploiting longitudinal data on lottery winners. Comparing people before and after a lottery windfall, we show that winners tend to switch towards support for a right-wing political party and to become less...

This paper studies the equilibrium size of countries. Individuals in small countries have greater influence over the nature of political decision making while individuals in large countries have the advantage of more public goods and lower tax rates. The model implies that (i) there exists...

Public sector activities are often neglected in the economic approaches used to analyze the driving forces behind urban growth. The institutional status of a regional capital is a crucial aspect of public sector activities. This paper reports on a quasi-natural experiment on county towns in East...

During the 1950s and 1960s, many economists were convinced that externalities were a cause of "market failures" -- because individuals are not capable of internalizing the costs their actions impose to others -- and therefore that the intervention of the state was necessary to allow an efficient...

Since the outset of the Real Plan, Brazil has made considerable progress in economic stabilisation, although privatisation has so far been incomplete. This study aims at answering a number of questions emerging from the Brazilian privatisation experience. To what extent have sell-offs been...

A review of Andrés Álvarez and Juan Santiago Correa's book on the history of political and economic ideas in Colombia during the first century of the republic.

Measurement of both federalism and decentralization has been contentious. We introduce three new indicators reflecting important aspects of both federalism and decentralization. The three new indicators are the result of principal component analysis. When we try to identify their main...

Frankreich steht vor wichtigen Herausforderungen in der Arbeitsmarkt-, Finanz- und Wirtschaftspolitik. Die Arbeitslosigkeit ist seit vielen Jahren persistent hoch und liegt bei etwa 10 Prozent; die Jugendarbeitslosigkeit sogar bei etwa 25 Prozent. Bei den öffentlichen Finanzen ist dem Land eine...

Die Regierung eines Landes kann sich zum risikolosen Zins verschulden und in den Weltaktienmarkt investieren. Die Aktienerträge werden an die Bürger des Landes in Form einer sozialen Dividende weitergegeben. Welche Effekte hat diese Politik auf die Wohlfahrt der Bürger?

The empirical evidence on the relationship between political decentralization and corruption is far from clear. We develope a model that analizes the relationship between decentralization and corruption and show how cost-benefit calculations can lead public administrations to tolerate a certain...