In international relations, short-run incentives for non-cooperation often dominate. Yet, (external) institutions for enforcing cooperation are hampered by national sovereignty, supposedly strengthening the role of selfenforcing mechanisms. This paper examines their scope with a focus on...

In international relations, short-run incentives for non-cooperation often dominate. Yet, (external) institutions for enforcing cooperation are hampered by national sovereignty, supposedly strengthening the role of selfenforcing mechanisms. This paper examines their scope with a focus on...

Studies on EU enlargement mostly focus on its welfare-economic and much less so on its public-choice dimension. Yet, the latter may be as important as the former when it comes to sustain integration. This paper aims at filling the gap by exploring theoretically and empirically how enlargement of...

Previous studies were plagued with considerable problems when interpreting and empirically analysing Wagner's Law. Therefore, we initially present some kind of "pure theory of government's share" for a two-person society based on the pure theory of public and private goods as originally...

We examine whether the Samuelsonian definition of public goods can be reconciled with "Wagner's Law", that is, public expenditures outpacing economic growth. While both predominantly focus on the demand-side, they differ with respect to their socio-political foundations. Taking the latter into...

Starting from the secular fact of an increasing government´s share, a retrospective on Adolph Wagner´s writings seems worthwhile. A leading German economist of the Bismarck era, he first formulated the famous 'law of increasing state activity' for industrializing nations. After analyzing his...

Many countries in the Western hemisphere are experiencing a political backlash against globalization. When explaining this phenomenon, much of the extant research draws on the distributional effects of international competition, in particular the opposition to trade by those who are adversely...

In Asien entsteht eine neue Freihandelszone, und auch Lateinamerika plant den Abschluss eines Handelsabkommens. Führt der Aufstieg der neuen Wachstumsmärkte zu einem neuen Kräfteverhältnis auf dem Weltmarkt und einer Verschiebung des Schwerpunkts des Welthandels? Für Barbara Dluhosch,...