Does fiscal governance affect government borrowing costs? We operationalize fiscal governance as the ability of governments to pass a budget on time and, using a unique data set on budget enactment dates, analyze the effect of such late budgets on government bond yield spreads. Based on a sample...

This article analyzes the political origins of differences in adherence to the fiscal framework of the European Union (EU). It shows how incentives to use fiscal policy for electoral purposes and limited budget transparency at the national level, combined with the need to respond to fiscal rules...

We analyze how a key component of fiscal governance, the ability of governments to pass a budget on time, affects government bond yield spreads. Based on a sample of 36 US states from 1988 to 1997, and using an original data set on budget enactment dates, we estimate that a 30day budget delay...

Consumption theory predicts that the cost of liquidity determines spending responses to a stimulus. We test this hypothesis directly using administrative records of individual-level loan and deposit accounts in combination with a Danish fiscal stimulus reform transforming illiquid pension wealth...

This paper shows how Danish administrative register data can be combined with survey data at the person level and be used to validate information collected in the survey. Register data are collected by automatic third party reporting and the potential errors associated with the two data sources...

This paper explores the effect of political accountability on the size of the public sector in a principal-agent model of democratic government. Political accountability is the degree to which the electorate can control politicians through elections, and emphasis is put on the roles of...

Discussions about the legitimacy and welfare consequences of paternalistic interventions usually begin with the assumption that regulators are both benevolent and competent. We present experimental evidence that neither need be the case. In our experiment, individuals choose whether to restrict...

This paper documents a large association between individuals' time discounting in incentivized experiments and their positions in the real-life wealth distribution derived from Danish high-quality administrative data for a large sample of middle-aged individuals. The association is stable over...

Theoretically, this paper draws on political agency theory to formulate hypotheses. Empirically, it shows that political institutions have a role in explaining the prevalence of political corruption in American states. In the states, a set of democracies where the rule of law is relatively well...