This study provides a comprehensive, accurate and ready-to-use dataset on the relationships between the members of the Swiss Parliament and groups of interests. We capture politicians' linkages exploiting (1) their mandates in legal entities; (2) the enterprises, associations or other...

Using a unique dataset, based on the 49th Swiss legislature, we assess lobbying effect on politicians' votes. Counselors' ties are approximated by their mandates in in legal entities. Political representatives' fidelity to their political group is measured by a dummy proximity indicator. We find...

Using a unique dataset, based on the 49th Swiss legislature, we assess lobbying effect on politicians' votes. Counselors' ties are approximated by their mandates in in legal entities. Political representatives' fidelity to their political group is measured by a dummy proximity indicator. We find...

This study provides a comprehensive, accurate and ready-to-use dataset on the relationships between the members of the Swiss Parliament and groups of interests. We capture politicians' linkages exploiting (1) their mandates in legal entities; (2) the enterprises, associations or other...

This paper analyzes inter- and intraregional redistribution in a centralized state using the citizen-candidate model. It focuses on conflicting interests among regions and among citizens of varying mobility. If discrimination with respect to place of residence and degree of mobility is possible,...

We examine the incentives of regions in a country to unite or toseparate. We find that smaller regions have greater incentives tounite, relative to larger regions. We show, however, that on thewhole, majority voting on separation and union generates excessiveincentives to separate. This leads us...

In this paper I examine the incentives of regions to unite, to separate and to provide public goods. Separation allows for greater influence over the nature of political decision making while unification allows regions to exploit economies of scale in the provision of public goods. When public...

Employing a political-economics approach, this paper compares small states and unions when the former fail to internalize cross-border externalities of publicly provided goods. It discusses two types of unions: federations with more than one level of government and unitary states. While unitary...

This paper examines the effect of local political decision-making institutions (i.e., direct democracy vs. representative democracy) on citizens' preferences toward public spending. Exogenous variation in institutions comes from a regression discontinuity design, which exploits a discrete change...

This paper examines the effect of local political decision-making institutions (i.e., direct democracy vs. representative democracy) on citizens' preferences toward public spending. Exogenous variation in institutions comes from a regression discontinuity design, which exploits a discrete change...