A fiscal program that redistributes income from rich to poor individuals indirectly redistributes tax revenues from regions hit by a favorable shock to regions hit by an unfavorable one. Centralized fiscal redistribution has therefore been advocated as a way to insure individuals against...

We evaluate the effect of a politician’s age on political governance, reelection rates,and policies using data on Italian local governments. Our results suggest that younger politicians are more likely to behave strategically in response to election incentives: they increase spending and...

This study explores the consequences and origins of contemporary differences in well-being across ethnic groups within countries. We construct measures of ethnic inequality combining ethnolinguistic maps on the spatial distribution of groups with satellite images of light density at night....

This paper explores how individual preferences for redistribution depend on future income prospects. In addition to estimating the impact of individuals' socioeconomic background and of their subjective perceptions of future mobility, we employ panel data to construct ‘objective’...

This paper studies the relationship between international conflict and the size distribution of countries in a model in which both peaceful bargaining and nonpeaceful confrontations are possible. We show how the size distribution of countries depends on the likelihood, benefits, and costs of...

The goal of this paper is to evaluate the attribution of policy prerogatives to European Union level institutions and compare them to the implications of normative policy models and to the preferences of European citizens. For this purpose we construct a set of indicators to measure the...

This paper successfully tests on a sample of 71 countries for the period 1960–85 the following hypotheses. Income inequality, by fuelling social discontent, increases sociopolitical instability. The latter, by creating uncertainty in the politico-economic environment, reduces investment....

This paper studies whether fiscal corrections cause large output losses. We find that it matters crucially how the fiscal correction occurs. Adjustments based upon spending cuts are much less costly in terms of output losses than tax-based ones. Spending-based adjustments have been associated...