This paper investigates the politics of delays in pension generosity cutbacks in 18 OECD democracies between 1981 and 1999 by using event history analysis. In the context of fiscal austerity, policymakers are assumed to have a strong incentive to manipulate the timing of cutbacks strategically....

This article discusses the politics of ideas, jobs, and anger in post-communist Europe and it critically reviews Phineas Baxandall's (2004) Constructing Unemployment, and David Ost's (2005) The Defeat of Solidarity. It argues that as the new democracies in Central Europe approach the end of...

This article reviews the emerging literatures on public policies to invest in, and protect, human capital and valuable asset-specific skills. Special attention is given to two recent books on the topic: James Heckman and Alan Krueger's (2003) Inequality in America, and Torben Iversen's (2005)...

This article thematically reviews two leading schools of economic thought on efficiency in democracy. The author pits collective action and public goods-based approaches in the tradition of Mancur Olson (1965, 2000) against Chicago-influenced theses by Posner, Stigler, Breton, Wittman and...

This article explores the associations between self-reported Public Service Motivation (PSM) and preferred job traits, study choice, and observable prosocial behavior. We study three subject pools covering over 250 university students in Germany. We use laboratory experiments with monetary...

We ask whether EU membership has been associated with increased domestic economic growth. Using different causal identification strategies, different time periods, different country samples, and different datasets, we are unable to demonstrate the presence of a membership growth premium. This...

We ask whether EU membership has been associated with increased domestic economic growth. Using different causal identification strategies, different time periods, different country samples, and different datasets, we are unable to demonstrate the presence of a membership growth premium. This...

Policymakers generally have powerful incentives to attract votes by strategically manipulating public policies, for instance by increasing public spending during election periods or by implementing ideologically valued policies for their electoral base. At first sight, public theaters and...

What are the net inter-age resource transfer burdens over the life course of working-age parents as compared to working-age non-parents in Europe? We estimate all cash, in-kind, and time transfers of the market economy and the household economy, through both public and familial channels, for...

This Policy Brief summarizes the latest evidence on active labour market policy (ALMP) spending and Employment Protection Legislation across the OECD. It then summarizes theoretical findings from Tepe & Vanhuysse (2013), arguing that unions but not left-wing parties today increasingly take into...