Die vorliegende Untersuchung befasst sich mit den theoretischen Hauptsträngen der Eurobetriebsrat-Forschung (EBR-Forschung). Dieser internationale sowie interdisziplinäre Themenkomplex ist durch eine breite Vielfalt an Publikationen geprägt und erscheint in weiten Teilen als ein...

Eine Auswertung der Allgemeinen Bevölkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaften zeigt, dass in Deutschland zuletzt nur noch jeder fünfte Arbeitnehmer gewerkschaftlich organisiert war. Viele Gewerkschaften forcieren deshalb die Werbung neuer Mitglieder. Der relevante Ort der Mitgliedergewinnung...

Previous research has shown that if countries "merge", (i.e. move to centralized policy choices) the effect is to reduce lobbying. However empirical evidence suggests that this is not always the case. This paper attempts to explain the empirical evidence in a two-jurisdiction political economy...

With interest groups significantly affecting economic performance (according to Mancur Olson) and a vital interest of governments in economic growth and low unemployment in order to win elections, there should be a link between political business cycles and the evolution of lobbies over time...

Mancur Olson's theory of the decline of nations is path-breaking in political economics. It has been tested cross-sectionally in numerous empirical studies. We survey the existing results briefly, with a special focus on studies using the number of lobbies as an exogenous variable. Using data...

Interest groups are introduced in a spatial model of electoral competition between two political parties. We show that, by coordinating voting behavior, these interest groups increase the winning set, which is defined as the set of policy platforms for the challenger that will defeat the...

Reform delays emerge frequently in politics but can be solved using compensation payments. A higher degree of fragmentation among the addressees may- according to the theory- reduce these costs. The number of groups and the inherent uncertainty normally influence agents' behaviour. When this...

In the last two decades of the XIX century Italy became an industrial country. Historians maintain that this process was affected by the action of some interest groups that pursued both state protection from competition and specific public expenditure programs. Starting from the economic...

The present paper analyzes situations in which groups compete for rents. A major result in the literature has been that there are both cases where larger groups have advantages and cases where they have disadvantages. The paper provides two intuitive criteria which for groups with homogenous...