Recent theoretical research suggests that financing sub-national governments’ expenditure out of own revenue sources is linked to more responsible budgeting, because the financial implications of spending decisions then are internalized within a jurisdiction. We test this proposition...

We provide new evidence on the short-run effect of elections on monetary aggregates. We study month-to-month fluctuations in the growth rate of M1 in a sample of 85 low and middle income democracies from 1975 to 2009. The evidence shows an increase in the growth rate of M1 during election months...

Fears of rising wage inequality and job loss loom large in current debates on free trade. Surprisingly, however, there exists little academic research on how to compensate those who lose from free trade. This policy paper reviews the existing theoretical literature on trade and compensation, and...

This paper studies the long-run fiscal consequences of balanced budget rules (BBR) that are enshrined in a country's constitution. Using historical data dating back to the 19th century and applying a difference-in-difference approach we find that the introduction of a constitutional-BBR reduces...

Fears of job losses and of increasing inequality loom large in current debates on how globalization is affecting our economies. By fundamentally changing the organization of production and work, globalization creates complex and changing patterns of winners and losers. Globalization thus creates...

Tax compliance nudges are used increasingly by governments because of their perceived cost-effectiveness in raising tax revenue. We collect about a thousand treatment effect estimates from 45 randomized controlled trials, and synthesize this rapidly growing literature using meta-analytical...

The "true" size of fiscal multipliers is widely debated by economists and policy makers as large (small) multipliers provide arguments to expand (cut) public spending. Within a meta-analytical framework, we ask whether the large observed variance in multiplier estimates can be explained by the...

We study the short-run effect of elections on monetary aggregates in a sample of 85 low and middle income democracies (1975-2009). We find an increase in the growth rate of M1 during election months of about one tenth of a standard deviation. A similar effect can neither be detected in...

We study the political economy of allocation decisions within a major state investment bank. Our focus is the European Investment Bank (EIB) - "The Bank of the EU" - which is the largest multilateral lending (and borrowing) institution in the world. We collect (and make available) information on...

A sizeable literature studies whether governments strategically interact with each other through policy-diffusion, learning, fiscal and yardstick competition. This paper asks whether, in the presence of direct democratic institutions, spatial interactions additionally result from voters' direct...